jonnythan:
Well, here's a view from *outside* the cult. I've been diving for a quarter century and thus far I'm not dead. None of my buddies is dead. Most of use many of the precepts of DIR, but all of us DIW all the time. I've got nothing against DIR for those that want to follow it, and suspect that if I ever dived in overhead situations I might adopt it for those dives. I'm a proponent of streamlining, an opponent of festooning oneself with gewgaws, and dislike combo BC inflator/octo thingies or Spare Air. and I'm seriously considering putting my ATX200 second stage on a long hose and my ATX40 octo on a bungee around my neck. However, I'm a rec diver who sticks with non-decompression dives with single tanks in non-overhead environments. I'm not as flexible as I used to be (especially left shoulder) and QD's help. I've got a backplate with a single length of webbing - it was my first backplate. It's made of plastic, but there is no other difference from a metal one. It sucked to dive with.
DIR absolutely sounds like religion to many non-devotees. You ask why people go to "such lengths to find one little thing." It's because DIR divers go to such lengths to ridicule or reject any methods or equipment but their own. The method is exceedingly rigid and inflexible and any deviation from it is seen as unacceptable.* Many adherents describe it as the only way to dive, not just what they prefer. Highly insulting terminology is used to describe infidels^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hnonbelievers, and according to the most orthodox leaders, DIR adherents may not dive with "strokes," their term for the unclean. Change just a few aspects and you've got a cult - a closed, rigid, inflexible, self-referential system that rejects other viewpoints and promises the single path to salvation. Compare the devout catholic who is perfectly willing to answer questions about the tenets of her religion but doesn't spend all day telling Jews they're going to hell with the Scientologist who can't stop telling the guy next to him on the plane why everything he believes is right and everything the seatmate believes is worthless. Either the Catholic or the Scientologist in my example could represent the DIR diver, but it's the latter type that answers your question.
If you believe that a plastic QD will kill you, don't dive with them. If you start expecting me to believe that my diving using plastic QD's will kill me then you're asking me to adopt your faith. I do not share that faith, primarily because it's wrong - if every aspect of my system fails at my maximum depth it won't kill me. For me, being unable to ditch would be the biggest problem. I'm comfortable being at 120ft naked, but if my first stage is dead I'd much prefer to be able to lose my now-useless tank, weight system, and, yes, BC under some circumstances (if it's not holding air it's just dragging me down). For *my* diving, plastic QD's are a blessing and a welcome if minor safety feature.
*I'm a physician and former pilot. In both of these fields standardization, and plenty of it, is considered a Good Thing, but excessive rigidity and an inability constantly to question what one is doing and to deviate from the standard when indicated Will Get You (or others, possibly lots of others) Killed. I completely understand why a team of cave divers needs absolutely standard equipment and procedures. It would be silly or even irrational to apply every procedure I follow at work to my home life. Similarly, the procedures needed by cave diving teams are not necessarily the best for rec divers.
Doing it Wrong, but it works for me.
