Diving in Bikini, we had some really slick SM divers. My experience is four bottles with SM is a hassle and I much prefer BM, but with your back its worth the effort. One of the SM divers was a really petite woman, she mostly geared up sitting on the platform and sorted herself in the water. Find what suits you and practice it until it fits intuitively.
Be really particular about how you stow your deco regs to minimise chest clutter, and how you gas switch your SM regs. I saw that one go wrong at 50m on my Trimix course. Fun times, I got to practice my long hose drills and a SM diver got to practice his sheepish looks.
You'll see a lot of support in this forum for GUE courses. A guy I dived with recently had his Tec 2 cert rescinded for not having enough dives signed-off by a GUE instructor. He moved for work and was no longer diving GUE standard gasses and profiles, so that was that. TDI gives you a lot of dive planning flexibility and a very comprehensive knowledge of the theories of gases and decompression. A lof of people want to denigrate the instructors, but training is what you make of it. Competence is more about your attitude, and how often you can get out and dive than it is about which course you did. Every instructor has a nugget of wisdom to share.
