To go back to the part of your question about instructing . . . If you read thread after thread here, you'll see a theme. A lot of people are really distraught at the low amount of experience and relatively poor diving skills seen in divemasters and instructors. It is my personal opinion, shared by many people here, that if you intend to teach people, your own skills should be really excellent. It does not take much to be able to plant people on their knees and make them clear their masks, but if you want to create divers, you have to show them how it is possible to DIVE. Diving is done neutral. Mask clearing is done while you are swimming along the wall in Bunaken (where there is not bottom on which to kneel). Air sharing shouldn't ever be necessary, but if it is, it should not stress anyone and buoyancy control should be maintained throughout the ascent.
If you can't do these things yourself, you can't teach them. If you are lucky with your instructional experiences, you may be taught to attain that level of skill; if you are plugged into a class mill that's designed to pump out DMs and instructors who will work for cheap, it's unlikely that you will. I don't know what you are doing now, but two years to obtain the skills I'm talking about is a very short time, unless you are diving constantly and have some very good help and some very good role models.
I'd highly suggest talking to some of the folks in the DNY (Dive New York) group here on SB, and maybe meeting up for a dive. They can give you an idea of the skill level I'm talking about -- I know quite a few of them have advanced certifications.
