Wooo!
I was agreeing with you until you made this statement
Where I live our teams are all volunteers, if no one volunteered then there be no Fire or rescue in my area ( I live in the boonies). Now with that being said there is really no budget so they dive with what they got and I dont think it is the gear that makes the diver. There are some mebers with some very old gear and it works just fine, the gear is well taken care by them and they are excellent divers. I personally use a 7mil farmer john suit, cause not everyone can afford a dry suit. What does it matter how fast you suit up to retrieve a body that has been missing for days that stuck in the dam or how fast you suit up to retrieve a firearm from under the bridge. Now I am not saying it should take them hours to get ready but we can usally get to the site and get our gear on with in 10 minutes, I am a big guy and it takes me prob less then 2 to 3 minutes to get my suit on including boots, gloves, hood.
What I am trying to get at is that there gear should not be a reason to say no! There skills on the other hand would be. Also how many times have you been called to rescue some one from under water that was still alive by the time you get there. Most dive teams unfortunatly do not get called right away especially if it is not in a well known area. So actually most of your calls would be recovery calls.
Ok my rant is over and I prob just started a war but gear aint everything, think about the older divers with a harness a tank no guages no comupters huge masks. They got the job done.