First, after any admonition that PADI gives, they immediately follow it with "unless you have the proper training" which they are more than happy to sell to you.
Second, the classes you mention predate any tech classes PADI has and also predate the term tech diving and its divergence from other recreational diving. They could work these classes into the tech diving side of PADI, however the additional training needed before the actual classes would put them at a disadvantage in the marketplace.
My point, which you seemed to gotten exactly, to a point, is that PADI broke their own rules to take the money for these activitities (because they had no other option if they did not want to send people to outside agencies for training). The reason they had to break their own rules about recreational diving was they had no in-house choice.
However, the idea of "not sending people to outside agencies" is not really the case since the instrcutor has to a full Cave certification by an outside cave training agency. In other words PADI actually recgnized that they as an agency were not equipped to teach it without outside help. And they recommend the instructor be in full cave rig.
And then they explicitly forbid the student divers from wearing doubles.
SO there is an insane mishmash of ideas here: The instructor in charge is recommended to be, and likely wants to be in full cave gear, because proper training, she got from an outside agency, has taught her that being in an overhead in a potential siltout situation means that fully redundant gear is not just wise but a basic requirement. But if she actually knows what she is doing, she wants the divers to be similarly equipped, because students can get themselves lost and separated. But they are not allowed to be. I actually understand the reasoning (dressing students in different gear than the instrcutor enforces their lack of skill/training), but it is silly, because if Cavern Diver specialty holding divers actually use their training outside of class then no one has redundant gear in a hard over head environment.
Wreck diving is unfortunately not even this sensible since
No out-of-air drills are to be practiced in the overhead environment.
So no direct access to the surface, and no practicing handling this situation. Which is exactly the situation that would show a diver that wreck penetration is not something they can handle, in recreational gear, at their level of training. In other words, PADI is counting on the fact that bad things don't usually happen even to those doing ill-advised things,
instead of practicing to handle potential problems in a matter of fact way. And there is no requirement for outside training for the instructor, so the instrcutor is similarly unaware of just what he is doing by training divers to penetrate in non-redundant gear, in addition to teaching in non-rendundant gear without long hoses. Also no requirement that the instructor be in full wreck gear (fully redundant gear with a long hose), as it should be since the instrcutor likely has no training himself on how to use it anyway.
And a requirement that the students have snorkels etc. At least they don't ban doubles explicitly in this course.
My take is there there is no longer a requirement to play games with where they draw the line in order to offer training for these pursuits, because they do offer technical training in fully redundant gear now (Don't get me started on the fact that on the tech side they allow single tank deco dives, though.). More to the point for the sport as a whole, the sooner we require high demand classes have some real experience (100 dives) and more training, and more training to teach (tech instructor training), the better.
And for me personally, I can stop having the stupid discussions about the "standard PADI gear setup" with no-brain fellow PADI instructors. One of the reason that I get to hear from fellow PADI instructors that it is "not allowed" to teach with a long hose or with full redundancy is because they simply have no idea what a long hose is for, or why full redundancy is ever needed. And these are PADI Wreck Diver Instructors. I simply do not teach the PADI Wreck Diver Course because it is as written a recipe for bad things happening. Here's what a cluster fudge it is: guiding fun divers into an overhead is usually justified by saying "I am a Wreck Diving instrcutor, and I am conducting
special orientation dives for certified divers
Because under the PADI confusion as it stands, that is, in fact, completely allowed. Because bright lines about overhead environments were fudged in a money grab, and we have not corrected them.
Understanding is good for the sport.
Continuing Education, especially for instructors who tend to fossilize their thinking otherwise, is good for the sport.
PADI fudging their own rules to keep overhead environment training, diving and guiding on the recreational side is not. It's interfering with a bunch of things even ignoring the most important issue of safety.
---------- Post added July 12th, 2014 at 01:50 PM ----------
Yes, but we are not talking here about divers who undergo further training. It's about those who don't and what's being said that some regulations are only for training and can be forgotten afterwards.
And beyind that the meta-point that the instructors themselves often undergo
no training whatsoever as a Wreck Diver, and then teach the Wreck Diving course.
So even if there is training, what is being transmitted?