Dan, it is absurd beyond belief. But, in my travels, I have come across two shops that will not dive me deeper than 60' without the AOW, even if I have my last 100 logged dives with me. It looks like it is going to become the price of admission at more places, and I don't want to get caught flatfooted if I am in California or somewhere and they demand "the card."
I am NOT thrilled that Maribi and I have to spend $400 between us to get this (at least Scubaworks was running a good deal), which anyone can get with only 8 dives in their life. But, it is also the gateway to rescue diver training and deco procedures training, both of which are in the future for us. I just don't see the point of the AOW course, when everything in it shouild be part of the basic OW (it was when I got OW in 1976, and we even learned "one stop deco" diving and how to use actual decompression tables and not just the recreational table).
They (PADI} still teach "feet first" descents, for crying out loud! MB worked hard to learn from me good horizontal descents, and also "dive bomb" descents on the Zion, and as you say she excels. She thought AOW would be good to learn navigation, but in one dive with me at BHB she was running squares, triangles, and courses to marker buoys after an hour or so. I know mentoring and experience still count for a lot in most places, but not everywhere, and not for further training.
But, I digress from this excellent thread . . .