MikeFerrara:
I fear (I'm not really all that scared myself) that much of the (dare I say it?) recreational diving mentality is creeping it's way into technical diving as it, also, becomes big business. Not that I want it to be exclusive because that's not the way I mean it.
Then how DO you mean it? Break it down, Mike - exclusive doesn't mean snobbish - it means it EXCLUDES someone, which includes excluding those who lack the proper skills, or on some other legitimate basis.
Your marriage is exclusive - you exclude all the women in the world besides your wife when it comes to romantic interaction. Does that mean there's something wrong with all the other women in the world? NO. The biggest problem with maintaining valuable barriers to entry in today's world is that people can't separate exclusion from judgment of someone's worth as a human being. Exclusion isn't a bad thing. Your accountant is excluded from performing open heart surgery - that doesn't mean surgeons are better people than accountants.
If you want to insure that all tech divers (or all divers, for that matter) are competent, then you HAVE to exclude those who are unable or unwilling to achieve competence, and that's being exclusive. Leave the politically correct tiptoeing at the door and call a thing what it is.
I used to have a boss who was very portly. When people started the egalitarian rant about how bad barriers to entry were, implying that somebody not getting to participate in an activity they found desirable was some sort of gross injustice, he would say "I cannot be a belly dancer - this is not tragedy, it just is."
If someone wants to dive the Doria, or just dive, and is denied that because they can't swim, or because they won't accept a few challenges in training, why is that any more an injustice than the fact that I can't have my way with Katy Holmes just because I don't look like Tom Cruise or am unwilling to do what it takes to earn as much money as he does?