DiR diving is diametrically opposed to notion of solo diving. It is all about team. Standardized gear, gas, procedures, etc. Solo diving, by definition, you assume that you are on your own and have to carry all kinds of redundancy that you would not need if you were diving in a team. You don’t need a pony bottle if you have a dive buddy. You don’t take your BC off for any reason when you have a buddy because they can see and fix you the parts of your gear that you cannot access. Heck, even a long hose is pointless if you are a solo diver.
There are individual skills you can learn from DiR diving (eg. propulsion techniques) but those are not unique to DiR.
The challenge with GUE diving as far as I am concerned is the dogma. You must do this, you must do that, you must follow the standards.
Diving isn't like that. You're frequently alone and, to be honest, it's great to be able to bimble around a dive site to enjoy the flora, fauna and wreck for what it is without the hassle of looking after someone else.
There's some great things that came out of the DIR philosophy; sorted skills and a great starting point for kit configuration. However it's not always the right kit configuration for the dive and circumstances.
I could go on with examples, but the DIR community are famously deaf to any form of dissent from the one and only true way to dive. GUE and suchlike can seem more cult-like than pragmatic -- found this in my dalliance with GUE fundies where 'why' questions weren't encouraged as far more experienced divers decided that's the way to do it. It is interesting that many of the GUE people I know are far more flexible in their diving, especially in terms of kit choice.
A self-reliant attitude is critical with diving. Sure, there's extreme expedition diving where the team-oriented approach is critical, but that's not what 99.99% of divers do in their simple wreck, reef, whatever diving. Solo diving imposes great responsibility on yourself to sort your own issues out in advance of them being problems. Think them through before diving; use checklists; rigidly do your solo "buddy" checks. Solo diving, or independent diving as we call it here, is extremely popular as you don't have to arrange for other people to come along to the same dives. Book on a dive boat (aka taxi) and out you go. If people do dive with you, both of you are still diving solo but with other divers.
Kit is configured to work for the conditions found in that diving environment, especially in poor visibility: bungee sidemounting bailouts on both sides to keep them streamlined -- there's no longhose because it's on the bailout -- the stage cylinders don't get jammed in a wreck nor suck your energy as they sway with your finning strokes. Sidemount diving is fantastic in open water, true redundancy and amazing trim. Gasses are what are practically available where boosters aren't common and whatever's available following air tops, such as 80%. No rigid rules about helium; if you're diving at 45m/150ft on air then be more careful -- it's your responsibility to assess your own tolerance to narcosis. Using big reels to send up the self-inflating SMB from the bottom (a requirement around here with the strong currents). GF50:80 and using two or three computers and following their deco plans (ratio deco, words utterly fail me). Helmet mounted torches. Clothes pegs to mark lines.
Heresy. Burn the witch.
Anyway, I find it fascinating seeing how DIR et al will adapt to the rest of the technical diving community. They're not strokes, they do their own thing very successfully without the dogma. TDI, IANTD, even PADI TEC has absolutely caught up and is producing very capable
thinking divers. Helium's getting harder to find and a lot more expensive rendering OC deep dives unviable (yes, that word again). CCR will become more popular -- I rarely if ever see any OC divers on deep dives.
Doing It Right for the dive in hand.
