...I am not the arbiter of how other people choose to dive and I'm not going to get in to arguments with strangers about their dive kit configuration.
Fair enough, and I largely agree. I'm not out to regulate someone else's good time, and I hope other folks will grant me that same courtesy.
But I'll counter our shared perspective with a true story.
I and
@Rollin Bonz were at a quarry and during our surface interval, we noticed another fellow setting up his gear on the dock. (For the sake of the story, I'll call him George, but if you do some digging, you can find the guy's real name.) George was diving SM. Hey...we primarily dive SM, too! So we went over to say hi.
When we walked up, we both noticed that George's configuration was kinda unusual. His lower boltsnaps were on bungee, and they were awfully high up the tanks -- at least halfway up, if not even further. IIRC, there were a few other odd-looking things, too, but those two items are what stick in my memory. I didn't think it looked very safe or put-together, but George was kinda short and was diving LP85s, so I figured that maybe he knew something I didn't.
We made conversation and asked George questions about his setup, but he didn't have good answers. He'd just been SM certified and had a solo card, he said, but beyond that his replies were mostly made of hemming and hawing noises and blank looks. He seemed defensive. So my buddy and I gave up, wished him a good dive, and politely withdrew.
Once we were out of earshot, we conferred and agreed: George didn't have his shiznit together, and we were going to steer clear of that particular trainwreck. But we didn't say anything to anybody else and just went on with our day, as did George.
As time went on,
@Rollin Bonz and I saw George at the quarry quite a few times, but we never actually crossed paths again. We'd be over at our usual station, assembling our gear, and we'd see George walking around in the distance; his gear would be sitting on the dock, with those weird bungeed boltsnaps up way high. We'd just shake our heads and let the guy do his thing.
And then one day, George went on a solo dive. He went to 100-plus feet in black water, did some kind of line-laying exercise, and got himself tangled up. He died with nearly full tanks.
In retrospect, I think George's gear configuration was a sign. Did his configuration cause his death? Probably -- almost definitely -- not. But did that weird setup demonstrate that George didn't have the knowledge or skills to make the dives he was trying? I think the answer is yes.
So should we have said something? Dunno. I can't see as it would've done any good. Based on our limited interactions with George, he didn't seem open to discussion, so telling the guy he was doing things wrong probably just would've annoyed him. And since neither I nor
@Rollin Bonz are instructors, telling the quarry's management -- "hey, this guy is diving solo with an unusual gear setup!" -- wouldn't have carried any official weight. But I kinda wish there had been some way to say something to somebody.