This is one heck of a skewed question. I promised myself never to be involved in an official "DIR" issue on a U.S. board, but really, what sort of a poll is this?
You're either PADI/NAUI/SSI or you're DIR? Or in-between? Huh?
PADI is still, in the main, a great recreational agency (despite the excellent DSAT TecDeep course), NAUI has superb recreational training
and excellent tec courses, whereas the only DIR agency, GUE, has no recreational introductory scuba training at all (as yet ...) but some very interesting cave classes and some pretty nifty OW tech classes.
This is another thread where technical diving is equated with DIR and GUE. Nothing wrong with GUE:s training per se from an OC viewpoint, but there
are other technical diving agencies out there. Ever heard of TDI or IANTD? NAUITEC? DSAT's technical division? ANDI?
Am I DIR?
Well, I use Halcyon gear, JetFins, a long-hose and all the superficial trappings when diving OC. I don't smoke, I don't approve of solo diving or deep air and I detest incompetent and lazy instructors, particularly the ones who find their teaching certificates in a corn flakes package at breakfast.
On the other hand, my mindset is way too PP to make me a true DIR diver. Whatsmore, my RB commitment automatically disqualifies me. And I find the St George act (red neck antics, profanities, obscenities & all) wearing pretty thin ...
So then I'm just another recreational warm-water diver with an '80 on my back? (Not that there is anything wrong with that!)
Uh ... no. And there are many like me out there, I'm not exceptional in any way, shape or form. Quite unremarkable, actually.
Can I learn from the DIR mindset? Yup. Will I accept everything from Saint George and his choir as gospel? Nope.
At the end of the day, who cares? We're all divers, and presumably we all want to dive as safely and for as long as we can. What works for you, might not work for me, and vice versa. That doesn't make me right and you wrong, and vice versa again. That said, I do believe GUE has shaken up the technical community quite a bit and it does need shaking up, getting its standards adhered to etc.
But for the purpose of this poll, I've not voted at all. It would be like voting in a "do-you-still-beat-your-wife-poll, yes-or-no-only?". Which for somebody who has never beaten any female at all seems a very skewed question ...