Looking to upgrade to DUI, have a few questions

[Thunder Struck]

If you go with the DUI gloves be careful with the sizing. To that, I'll go over the sizing of the DUI to Showa gloves here. My DUI gloves are XL and my Showa 720 gloves are XL but the DUI gloves are much larger in comparison, pretty much comically oversized, like Mikey Mouse hands. The Showa's work great with a pair of Smartwool Thermal Merino Gloves (these are actually thin liner type gloves that work great on their own for me in the dry glove for water in the upper 50's) or I can add the Smartwool Liner Gloves over them and have them nice and warm in colder waters. These fit just fine under my XL Showa 720s, barely snug, but most importantly, no loose glove material. But I'm swimming in the DUI XL gloves with them, to include an extra 1/2" of finger length in the gloves. While the DUI gloves appear to simply be Showa 460 gloves but the DUI XL is still much larger than the Showa 720 XXL.

If you are going to go the DUI route, make sure you can try them on beforehand along with whatever liners you will use. Having them fit as loose as they do makes them less desirable to wear making it harder to manipulate objects. The liners that come with the DUI gloves aren't any thicker than my double layered Merino wool gloves and fit just fine in my Showa 720 XL gloves.

I'm guessing DUI is expecting folks to run very thick ski gloves under them, given their sizing guide. Or they run excessively large to help doff the suit since you need to be able to slide your hands out of the gloves since they are attached to the suit. With the Rolock system, I just give the glove a 1/4 turn and it pops off and I can get on with my life. In fact, in cold weather I don't even need to crack the zipper on my suit, I just stay in it nice and warm (again, making the P-valve all the more desirable), which is easy to do since I don't have attached gloves.

Here's a visual of some of the glove sizing:

Showa 720 XL without liners:

DUI XL without liners:

Showa 720 XL with both sets of wool liners gloves:

DUI XL gloves with both sets of wool liner gloves:

Showa 720 XL on left, DUI XL middle, Showa 720 XXL right:

ETA: Looks like the orange DUI gloves are the Showa 460?

 

[Thunder Struck]

An advantage of the Rolock ring system is you can keep the wrist seal intact. This allows you to dive the suit without dry gloves, or, should you puncture a glove, prevent water from making its way into the suit. Alternatively, you could use an old pair of torn wrist seals to start with, or just cut down, if you don't want to have the wrist seals and mimic the DUI gloves.

Until recently I would simply put the gloves on and not worry about the squeeze in my hands. However, I recently took to using a few inches of 1x2 mm silicone tubing under the wrist seal to allow air to move back and forth. Worst case scenario if I need to, I can remove the glove underwater, pull the silicone tube out, and re-establish complete integrity of the wrist seal should I somehow find myself with a severe leak in the glove. But it is nice to have gloves that I equalize with the suit. Tubing available here.

I have run into cases where I did get a leaking seal on the glove, possibly from a piece of crud on the sealing surface preventing a proper seal. Add in the pressure differential at depth and it's the prefect opportunity for water to leak in. To that end I kept a toothbrush handy to quickly clean off the mating surface of the glove rings. That seemed to help quite a bit and the last time I had wet hands was when I backrolled off the boat and forgot to take the gloves out of my pocket and put them on my hands. Fortunately with the liners being wool, they still help insulate even when wet.

The standard DUI Zip Seal gloves don't have wrist seals incorporated so a torn glove will easily allow water into the suit. DUI does offer their HD gloves with dams, for an extra $70. It doesn't appear to be standard wrist seal, but a simple donut seal. Probably to accommodate the complexity of donning/doffing the suit with the gloves being affixed to the suit.

The only real advantage I can see with using the DUI Zip Seal gloves is you retain having the pliable cuff on the sleeve. But the cons outweigh what I see as the only real benefit. Aside from the initial working my arms through the BCD harness straps, the rings don't present a problem. Although if you find yourself regularly reaching into small holes I could see them getting in the way. If you mount your ring system on an extra pair of Zip Seal wrist seals, you can simply remove the glove ring system and go back to regular wrist seals with the pliable cuffs quite quickly thanks to the quick change function of the Zip Seal.

Silicone tubing under the wrist seal:

 

[rjack321]

For the boots, I do all types of diving, boat, shore, walking over uneven rough surfaces, fresh, salt,....etc
I've ruled out rock boots and have narrowed it down to ultra flex and turbo tec. I also wear a layer of wool socks so that would have to factor in as well.

I would reconsider the rock boots. They are vastly more durable on rocky and uneven surfaces. And easily replaceable when they expire or wear down. You can also wear oversized neoprene booties instead. I wear mine with the weezle extreme+ socks over liner socks

 

[Thunder Struck]

I would reconsider the rock boots. They are vastly more durable on rocky and uneven surfaces. And easily replaceable when they expire or wear down. You can also wear oversized neoprene booties instead. I wear mine with the weezle extreme+ socks over liner socks

And another advantage of the booties is you can easily turn the whole suit inside out should you need to for cleaning/drying/whatnot.

ETA: Just make sure the first thing you do after pulling the legs up and getting your feet in the booties is putting the rock boots or neoprene dive booties on so you don't accidentally start to walk somewhere and poke a hole in the bootie.