Maaaaan...
Yeah, in their "more features" mentality, the hidden lift bag wins many hearts. Too bad that's waaaaay far away from the "big picture."
It's good to know that I'm not the only one that this stuff happens to, though.
I have to admit, that's probably the hardest thing about being DIR... The fact that everyone feels the need to "convert" me to non-DIR. My only defense is to tell people, "Yes, I learned how to dive on the same system you use. I know it intimately. After a bunch of diving, I've come to prefer this method."
...But as polite as that is, what typically happens is they ask, "Why?" If I tell them... Like, if I say to them, "Well, here's why I prefer a long hose" (and then proceed to donate to them in a mock OOA and show them how a long hose is necessary to exit a restriction in a single file), they get angry. In some cases, really angry.
There's usually a little light that goes on above their heads... They say, "Ohhhhhhhh... I see why you need all that hose and make yourself deal with it." (As if the long hose isn't easier than the short hose anyway.) "Well... *I* definitely don't need anything like that because I'm never in an overhead situation." Of course, this specifically counters the picture they have on the wall of them in the Ginnie ballroom. Or on deco. Or, in your case, on the 'Doria.
...But I'll swallow it and say, "Well, you might want something like this one day... But in the meantime, it works even in nonoverhead situations..."
At that point, it's like they just shut down... So I just shut up. I can see their eyes glaze over, and I think there's a psychological "block" that happens... Suddenly, they realize that there's a method to the different gear configuration, and they realize that perhaps they weren't taught all they really need to know to do the diving that they're doing.
...So I've come to the conclusion that I'm threatening. My gear - my attitude - my skill set - it's all threatening to them. And so they get angry.
...Which places me at the short end of many long jokes and prods. Lately, they've started calling me "genie," because I hover in the water column. I hear all the time, "You need to get on the bottom. That's how diving's done around here. You'll learn." (This typically comes from a diver with 20 or 30 dives in the local waters.)
Another good one is the day I let a buddy know that the dive style was called, "DIR." From that day on, he told me that it stood for "Diver In need of Rescue." I find the joke mildly amusing (hey, I can laugh at myself), but the bottom line is that I've "rescued" him twice... He's never rescued me once. Not even close.
He actually once justified the acronymn by telling me about some story he read somewhere (he was unable to produce the source) where a "recreational diver" had to "rescue a DUI diver." "Yep," he said... "I read all about it... Those guys at DUI are unsafe."
Talk about clueless.
And that's the hardest part of diving DIR. The attitude that those guys at NE Scuba have I find is very common... And the bottom line is that I constantly see the non-DIR guy attacking the DIR guy. If there were an ***hole to be defined, it wouldn't be the DIR guy.
...Which I think is so odd.
But hey, they killed Galilieo because he told everyone that the universe did not rotate around the Earth, contrary to popular opinion... I guess I'm getting off light being unusual.
)) 
