Smallest possible solution for travel?

[Bubbletrubble]

I can't really see the point of the DUI weight system. All the weight is still at the hips. How could that system offload the weight to ones shoulders, when one is swimming horizontally after all? The DUI system just adds some unnecessary straps. Better to have slip on weight pockets on the waist belt of the backplate. Those pockets can even be fastened with bolts to the backplate. If the wing would have more lift around the hips rather than shoulders, then this might be quite balanced. Poseidon Besea weigh pockets might work.

@Subcooled: The point of the DUI Weight & Trim (W/T) is to ease the wearing of lead weight on the hips. Some people don't like weightbelts on account of narrow hips or hips with less "natural padding." The weight in a DUI W/T is distributed across the shoulders via straps that the diver slips into first...before donning the BP/W. Give it a try and you'll be surprised how "light" the weight feels vs. wearing a weightbelt.

The DUI W/T does not position weight higher up on the diver, which is what divers need to do in order to improve head-up/feet-down static trim. XS Scuba makes some reasonably priced weight pockets that you can position on the upper tank camband if necessary. The DUI W/T does, however, attach weight to the diver rather than the BP/W rig which can influence how much minimum lift your wing is required to have. Splitting up ballast between the diver and the diver's BP/W can also be desirable in case you ever have to doff/re-don your rig underwater.

The DUI W/T system has a nice ditching mechanism that is not prone to accidental ditching. The pull handles are colored a bright yellow (highly visible) and protrude nicely from underneath the waistbelt part of a BP/W harness. The one disadvantage of this system is that it's suboptimal for boat diving in which the diver hands up weight pockets to crewmembers on the boat prior to re-boarding the boat (after a dive). I suppose one could pull the weight pockets out of the DUI W/T and hand them up, but then the diver would have to re-thread the pockets while on board the boat. Not fun if the surface is at all choppy.