I don't think it's fair to call this a "trust me" dive. What it was was an inadequately briefed dive, but you didn't know what questions to ask. I have to say that it would not occur to me to ask of someone doing a local dive briefing, whether it was safe to surface at any point during the dive. That's something that's pretty much assumed, unless someone specifically says otherwise, because it's at the heart of the definition of recreational diving.
I HAVE done dives in places where there was shipping traffic, or at the mouth of a marina, where part of the briefing was to be aware that that hazard existed, and the importance of getting back to the boat before surfacing, if at all possible. Omitting this type of information from a dive briefing would be, to me, a major lapse.