Nice summary. Very similar to when I took Rick's class earlier this spring with my wife. Good fun. I was narc on the dives at 40 Fathoms as well. It was pretty funny as we went down the line and hit 140' I was feeling it so I motioned to Rick that I was so-so. Rick turned looked at me, gave the okay, and then turned around and started off thinking that I gave him the level off signal. Now there was no way in hell I was leaving the line until I felt okay to continue. So I signaled Rick again and really gave him the so-so signal. This time I was understood and we hung for about minute then did the tour. I do remember seeing the boat, airplane, and the motorcycle, a bunch of logs. Rick said that during the the dive he would try to get me to violate our planned depth. Sure enough we were following a line that lead down to a log and then down to another line. Rick headed down it. I looked at my gauge and it said just over 140' and our planned depth was 145'. So I signaled and passed that part of the dive.
After a three hour or so interval we did the second dive. This time I was fine until about 10 minutes in and decided to call the dive early as I definitely could feel narcosis and some vertigo. The funny part is that when I decided to call the dive we were on the same line as the first dive when I was narc'ed.
All in all I would highly reccomend Rick's class. He is good instructor. Light hearted but he will make you work.
The other part that was good fun about 40 Fathoms was meeting Hal Watts aka Mr. Scuba. He is super nice guy very talkative.
Post script on using two gasses. Rick and I sat down and went through quite a few deco gas scenarios showing that there are many options. One gas versus two gasses, etc. I think the thing to remember here is that these are training dives and part of the training is planning deco dives and gas management as well as learning how to switch from one gas to another, restowing regs, etc. So from that point of view the course hits those marks as it gives you the tools to work with for future dives.