Hello nereas, not to sound contentious for the sake of it, but if we are going to qualify using an RB with the word "good", does that mean RBs are inherently unsafe and that any type of RB diving, baring scientific research, is more worthwhile/necessary than another?
As a "recreational" CCR diver, most of my dives accumulate less than 30 minutes of deco, are not in overhead environments and involve blending in with the scenery to have better wildlife interaction and the kind of maximum dive planning flexibility that CCR allows. And yet, I fail to see how somebody who wants to spend 20 minutes in/on a wreck at 300ft on a He mix to see the sights and get out of the water in the same 2 hours I will after watching sharks and other fish behavior in shallower water on air dil, is doing anything more laudable. We are both diving for our individual fulfillment and can share the experience with no one, other than through photography, albeit with different levels of risk.
But, if we are somehow going to accord greater importance to someone's dive plan based on risk, again baring scientific value, then a lunatic who does a bounce dive down 1000+ft using a deco program with no validation past 600ft and who claims to be only trying to achieve a personal goal, but who is also likely motivated by the notariety they will receive from the public, who don't know much about diving and think divers are just another type of adrenaline junkie, is that person somehow more noble than a diver who takes less risk?
I'm not a person who uses the phrase "It's all relative" very often, but I find myself miffed by the notion that any diving not funded by a non-for-profit organization advancing legitimate scientific goals, can be judged to have a higher value and thus more worthy of the risks associated with RB diving, than any other. Unless of course, all pretense is dropped and we admit that taking an extreme risk for the mere sake of it is just another way of avoiding a genital measuring contest.
BTW, I'm a novice tmix diver and have ambition to do more tmix dives in the future as my objectives dictate, and I got a CCR for the following reasons in order:
1) Better and more frequent wildlife interaction.
2) Maximum dive planning flexibility, both in terms of individual dives and the dive day.
3) Deco advantage of constant PO2 CCR diving.
I have enormous respect for any competent CCR diver who boldly goes someplace challenging and has a reasonable expectation of returning in good health. Just as I do for a CCR diver who focuses their attention differently, as I do, away from a primary concern for risk management in pursuit of objectives, and towards objectives that must be stalked, as hunters do... -Andy