Some "food for thought" - in DIR diving, we do not normally "ditch" our weights. Ditching can be dangerous, as it can cause an uncontrolled ascent or make it difficult to hold shallow stops at the end of the dive. We normally go for the "balanced rig" approach (which has been discussed at length elsewhere on SB), and try to limit the amount of removable weight we carry to just the minimum required to allow us to swim the rig up from depth.
If a BC failure occurs underwater and we cannot swim up or maintain buoyancy, then we remove our weightbelt and give it to our buddy. That allows us to ascend safely to a shallower depth, where we can then take the weightbelt back to complete any necessary stops. So in this sense at least, the weightbelt is never really "ditched", just temporarily taken by someone else.
I've never personally had to deal with this situation "for real" (I am perfectly balanced in saltwater, wearing a single AL80 and 3mm suit with no additional weight), but it seems like it would be easier for the assisting diver to manage things if the removable weight were carried on a traditional belt, rather than as individual weights in a pocket. That way you only have to pass one thing back and forth between the divers.
Could something like that work in your case?
For drysuit diving, you can carry all the weight as non-removable, since the drysuit serves as a backup buoyancy device. For a single tank drysuit dive, I typically use a steel tank, weighted STA, and then thread an additional 8-12 lbs of weight on the camstraps of the BC. This simulates the weight characteristics of doubles pretty well, so I don't really have to change too much about what I do. For doubles diving is not an issue, since no additional weight is required.
