I was reflecting on this the other day, after going back to check a thread where someone had put up a picture of the shiny new kit he had bought, and he got a bunch of fairly short, critical, and not very friendly responses, a number of them from people I know are "us".
I'm a pretty solidly committed DIR diver, myself, and I think there are a lot of good reasons why we use the equipment we do, and the procedures we do. I like the system, and I think everybody on this board knows that I push it (hopefully not too obnoxiously) wherever I see the opportunity to do so, here and IRL.
But my mother always taught me that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. And i we want to try to communicate a message, it seems to me it would work far better if we were pleasant about it. What's wrong with congratulating someone on their new equipment? And if you must, making a couple of pleasant and constructive observations about long inflators or quick releases, pointing out the reasons why the person might eventually rethink his setup? He's already bought it, anyway; jumping on him about it is much more likely to elicit a defensive reaction and a dislike for "us" than to change what he's bought.
I see this over and over again. Where it comes to things which relate to true safety (like air at 200 feet) I can understand getting short, critical or even just plain unpleasant. But for the simple stuff like wearing a snorkel, having quick releases, and other things relating to recreational diving or even the beginner techie who's doing his first doubles dives, do people really think it's necessary to be so rude? I don't think it makes us any friends.