...and for the other side of what I was writing earlier...
When teaching OW classes and getting to the dive planning portions, I have several times had students tell me that their experienced diving friends had told them that once the class was over, they could forget all the dive planning stuff, because in "the real world," all the planning is done by DMs.
For many people that is true for most if not all of their diving. In their OW classes, following a DM is not even mentioned. The class materials and requirements are designed to teach you to plan and execute your dive as a buddy team. In fact, that is exactly the final requirement of the current PADI OW class--plan and execute a dive as part of a buddy team. Give divers a few years of having the DMs set up their gear for them, plan the dive for them, and lead the dive for them, and they will have entered a state of learned helplessness, where they have indeed forgotten all of that stuff from OW class.
When teaching OW classes and getting to the dive planning portions, I have several times had students tell me that their experienced diving friends had told them that once the class was over, they could forget all the dive planning stuff, because in "the real world," all the planning is done by DMs.
For many people that is true for most if not all of their diving. In their OW classes, following a DM is not even mentioned. The class materials and requirements are designed to teach you to plan and execute your dive as a buddy team. In fact, that is exactly the final requirement of the current PADI OW class--plan and execute a dive as part of a buddy team. Give divers a few years of having the DMs set up their gear for them, plan the dive for them, and lead the dive for them, and they will have entered a state of learned helplessness, where they have indeed forgotten all of that stuff from OW class.