The courses are the same, the people are the same, society is different.
Evidently there was big change in standards made in the early 70's and some people still can't accept it. These people will always think that how it used to be is "better" and many people equate "harder" with "more effective"... That's never going to change. Likewise there are even some (and yes, some on Scubaboard) who believe that opening up diving to the masses was a mistake. These ones will moan about training no matter what you do (or don't do) because they simply don't like their sport getting invaded by "the average" person.
But getting to your point, there *have* been changes made to the standards since I took my initial training in 1984...the courses are not "the same". Some changes were small and some less small. For example, the hover used to be 1 minute and it was reduced to 30 seconds, probably in response to pressure from resorts who were on tight schedules and getting in time trouble with the hover because hovering takes time to learn and it can't be learned at all (let alone badly) if you're in a big hurry to get the course done and you've had your students firmly planted on the bottom for the first 3 modules practicing nothing but underwater-waiting-in-line. Reducing this requirement was a clear case of caving in to commercial pressures and was not in the best interest of students, if you ask me. However, it *did* mean that more people could "learn to dive"..... or put another way, it made turbo-tempo instructors who were more interested in being done on a tight schedule feel better about how they failed to teach buoyancy control. Either way, people were certified and some of them became exceptionally good divers despite lowering the entrance criteria.
Other things have changed as well. The AOW course has been restructured since 1984 to fit in a weekend (probably in response to the needs of resorts as well) and the number of specialties has exploded. Some of this is for the best, some I have my doubts about and may have been done for commercial purposes.... which I don't necessarily see as a bad thing as long as it's also adding value to the student's learning experience.
Personally, although I like giving certain specialties, I don't like giving the AOW course because of the deep diving requirement. I have met few AOW students who I felt were ready for deep diving (...and some who clearly were) and given the entrance criteria I believe that no matter how good of an instructor you are the gap is too big to bridge with 1 dive. However; that's another story altogether and probably says more about me than it does about standards.... nevertheless I say "no" to most requests to run AOW because of this unless the student has some experience, wants it done 1:1 and are willing to do more practice dives than the course dictates, particularly with respect to navigation and deep. With respect to the topic at hand, I believe this has actually improved since 1984 because of the reduction in the depth recommendation from 40 metres to 30 metres.
The big change that happened recently is, of course, removal of buddy breathing. It used to be a necessary skill because not everyone had a (proper) octopus, but the gear (especially the acceptance of the octopus) has changed and improved a lot since the early 80's and one could argue that the skill is no longer necessary because of those improvements. I'm a fence sitter on this issue because one could also argue that options should be left open but I've found ways to put the time that got freed up by taking this out to good use. In the end, i'm confident that I train my students well enough that the chances that they'll ever be in a situation where buddy breathing would be their only way out is exceedingly remote.
So yes, some things have changed, but this notwithstanding I don't feel as though the average OW student was better trained in 1984 than they are today. Differently, in some respects, yes, but not better or worse.
R..
LOL (there should be an "autocomplete" function in your settings somewhere ... turn it off)
