A good read, though it hardly touches on the equipment aspect, which is the topic of our discussion here. The author says, "I believe that all divers should be trained primarily as self-sufficient – solo – divers." I would like to see that, but if he believes the buddy system as it is currently taught in most OW courses doesn't work well once divers are out in the real world, then why would he believe teaching solo diving in the OW courses would work better out in the real world? I haven't taken one, but my impression is solo diving courses are rigorous--more so than the typical OW course. If the typical OW course doesn't teach the buddy system rigorously, then the same model of OW course wouldn't teach self-sufficiency rigorously. If self-sufficiency is taught as standard OW practice, including the use of a pony, I believe it's inevitable that some divers will leave the pony at home for some dives, perhaps because they deem the particular dive low risk, or just out of laziness, complacency, or something else, and then they won't have the buddy-donation skill to fall back on.