hmmm...
Another teaching thread that has potential. Should we get the arguing out of the way now or wait till later?
One of the things I find difficult about teaching diving is matching my own views to agency views. I dislike terms like "NDL" or "no decompression diving". What are you supposed to do with the extra inert gas? Take it home with you? In an entry level class it is hard to teach deco procedures. One of the things I do, however, is to point out what a recreational dive table says about a 130 ft dive and then give an overview of how I would do that dive. I give a brief description of the gases used, equipment used, gas planning and my ascent schedule. I don't call it minimum deco. I run the schedule with any one of a number of dive planning softwares. You see, I believe that 130, 100 or whatever is too deep for the vast majority of recreational divers especially given the equipment and level of planning being used. Some see that if a dive is too deep for me, with that equipment and those methods, then maybe they should think twice.
For a "shallow dive" a "minimum deco" schedule will not yield a statistical advantage in avoiding DCI symptoms. I am sure there is a difference in bubble presence and size but does it matter?
Ther are many references available to validate the theory of deep stops and I won't bother to list them here.
I don't know of an agency that dismisses the value of deep stops, however they do not, at this time, teach the theory to divers who haven't yet made a dive. I let new divers know such theories exist and of my beliefe that knowlege of them is a prerequisit to "deep" diving. In the context of recreational diving, my definition of deep is not very deep.