Your whole post made my point. You are trying to do things that, let me say it again, most other divers don't want to do. This behavior will only be the norm if you convince other people. So far you simply haven't been very convincing.
I've been thinking about this some. Why was I not convincing? There are probably many parts to this and it should be noted that some people are convinced that better swimming performance can lead to better dives and that this goal is worth pursuing. Obviously, others are not convinced.
There was a lot of resistence to my "requirements". I think that the term may have gotten distorted in translation from engineer to diver. The engineering process begins with "requirements". The requirements define what the goal of the design is to accomplish. Does it mean that no one should dive without meeting these requirements. No, it does not mean that. It means that a system I design to those requirements should be able to demonstrate compliance to those requirements. If not the design failed to achieve the intended goal for the hardware. I defined my requirements in terms of the speeds that are statistically driven by ocean conditions. Perhaps I needed to spend more time talking about why I wanted to do this aside from general safety and a claim that "it just makes sense".
While not everyone, I think it is true that most people who are interested in diving are initially drawn to it because of a desire for exploration and adventure. I also think one of the reasons that the attrition rate among new divers is so high is that they eventually learn that scuba diving is not an cost effective activity to satisfy that urge for exploration. The general lack of mobility leaves divers, in many cases, slaved to a dive boat for access to the ocean and that means you go where the dive boat goes. For some, and perhaps many, that is fine. That's what they want, they want the dive to be easy and they are willing customers for a guided tour. But this type of tour bus experience will not do much for quenching one's appetite for exploration, as you are unlikely to discover anything new. You will see what thousands of others have seen before you and it may be nice, but it is not very adventuresome.
If you want adventure, you need to get your own boat. Now, you are not talking about a few thousand dollars for dive gear to explore the ocean, you are adding anywhere from about $5k for a used small minimalist boat to $120k for a larger sized new boat that you can stay on, with the average boat probably falling in the $20k to $30k range. Then there are the costs for maintaining and operating a boat. Those costs usually match the initial purchase price over a typical time of ownership. In the end, it gets too expensive and people decide to go hiking or camping instead.
Adventure and exploration demand a certain level of autonomy of the diver. One can't be adventuresome while being slaved to a dive boat operator. My "requirements" were designed to reach what I thought would achieve that needed level of autonomy in the ocean, that a diver can be liberated from the dive boat operator. They can do a lot of dives without the dive boat at all and in the cases where a dive boat is still used, the scope of operations gives the diver a wide range of explorable territory (A diver could potentially range several miles if desired).
On top of this, the improved mobility can add certain elements of safety to just being in the ocean, so it is good from that perspective as well.
For those to want the tour bus experience, that's fine. The goal of those operations is to try to show you a nice dive spot that will have easy diving conditions. You probably will not have to swim much. In that case, this equipment will not do a whole lot for you and I can see why that kind of diver would not want to pay extra for the added capability that they will not use.
I have known people who just dropped of the back of the boat, went to the bottom and sat there looking around until they got board, and then back up to the boat. They had no need for swimming performance because they really didn't swim at all. They eventually quit diving.
Some people keep diving interesting by becoming photographers, or instructors. The diving becomes a means to an end rather than the focus of the activity. The swimming performance is not as important because it is not needed to do the main focus of the activity (framing pictures, or interacting with students). But when it comes to exploration, options are limited. You can become a tech diver and explore deeper, but the only options presently for exploring outward in the ocean instead of down is the equipment of treasure hunting. That equipment is far more expensive than even tech diving equipment, and very few people do it. My equipment can chip away at those limitations and allow divers to start exploring out instead of down. I think there are a lot of really great dive sites out there that have yet to be discovered because no one has ever dove there to find it. The adoption of this type of new equipment could be the dawn of a new era in underwater exploration.
Does this make any more sense?
