CGCHRN, please, it does little good to get that defensive. Yes, when you post issues here on ScubaBoard, you ARE going to be asked to look at what your own responsibility was in the situation . . . this is actually a very good learning experience. I've had people be pretty darned critical of me, when I've posted my screwups, and I learned from it, even if it wasn't very comfortable.
I think many of us have learned that what good diving judgment is, and what a dive operator will let you do, are two very different things. I went to 130 feet on an Al80 for my 10th dive of my life -- this was unwise to a degree that I absolutely did not understand at the time. I just knew the guy I was following was an instructor (which he was) and he knew how green I was (and he did) and I had been accustomed to following instructors and doing what they told me to do, so I did it. It was only a couple of months later, when I attended the first of NW Grateful Diver's gas management seminars, that I realized how foolish what I had done had been. I learned my "don't follow blindly" lesson at no cost to me at all; you learned yours at the cost of getting hypothermic and anxious. The important thing is that both of us learned the lesson with no permanent harm done.
I think you will be more careful and perhaps do a bit more research into your diving opportunities in the future. Don't you?
