When I tell the shop I am looking for a backpack/wing set up they immediately go into a long spill on their jacket bc's and how they are so much better etc. I get such gobbley gook as you cant hardly get into a one piece harness or if you have any shoulder problems you can never get in it or out of it etc. I am a little old but not crippled. Most shops I visited either do not have backpack/wings in stock or have maybe one with a wing that is clearly made for doubles. Yea sure, I will take that big floppy thing with 50lbs of lift for my single tank set up.
Three thoughts:
1. You don't note where, in NC, you live but you mention 'most shops', suggesting a larger metropolitan area, so I presume Charlotte. I know there are a number of divers in that area who dive BP/W rigs for recreational diving, so I have to believe at least one / some shops are not quite as clueless as the ones that you have had to put up with so far. Don't give up the local market. (On the other hand, if your local market is the Raleigh area, PM me, because I know of it least one shop with BP/W options in stock, and with considerable BP/W expertise.)
2. As John points out, this topic is a frequently discussed one, and his assessment is accurate. Essentially, a lot of shop owners / managers / staff simply have no experience with BP/W rigs, and therefore don't stock them and really can't offer informed commentary. As a defensive measure, they may denigrate BP/W rigs as being complicated or uncomfortable, or describe them as exclusively 'tech gear', to suggest they are not appropriate for recreational divers (which is simply wrong on both counts). It reminds me of how we describe the primary cause of diver injuries from marine life - 'defensive reaction'. And, that is what a lot of the nonsense you get really is, a defensive reaction.
3. As for the 'WHY', I have the perspective that the issue starts with training. Because the vast majority of OW training takes place in jacket BCDs (and with regulators with standard, short(er) hoses and big consoles), new divers understandably begin their quest for personal gear by looking at what they are familiar with, and start out with their own notions of what they want (as chs8084 noted above). I can see why the training gear is what it is - it is cheaper and easier to use jackets (and regs with short hoses and big, bulky consoles, etc.) for large OW classes. When the new diver then returns to the LDS to buy a first set of gear, and asks to see a BCD like the one they trained in, the shop staff go along and don't try to talk them out of what they want (an approach which, arguably, has some merit). I am not saying I agree with this reality, or endorse it, only that it is what it is.
I had a two recent, and enlightening, experiences - regarding consumer choices of dive equipment - with the owner of the shop where I teach. He is a very experienced recreational and technical diver and instructor, wears a BP/W exclusively himself, recommends it to others, etc. and he and I dive together, a lot. The other day, I saw him assembling a set of gear, that included an Aqualung I3 (with pink trim, no less) and asked him what it was for. He said he was pulling gear to fulfill a telephone order that he had just taken from a shop customer. I made a (somewhat sarcastic) comment about the I3 lever, and he said, 'I know what you are thinking. But, we get quite a few requests for them, they are popular.' In the other case, I mentioned to him some months ago that I strongly discourage new divers buying gear from buying weight-integrated BCDs, and use a weight belt instead. His response was that, although he and I use a weight belt and he understands my view as an instructor and a diver, the reality is that the majority of BCDs being produced and distributed in the US today are weight-integrated, the majority of new divers buying their first set of gear seem to want weight integration, and that I am swimming against a commercial tide.
