It is tiresome to read folks crapping on the AOW class; your complaints about it are that it is not the course you'd like it to be. It is kind of like complaining about a book on basketball because it is not about football.
AOW is meant to let people step gently beyond their OW training, and to give them an awareness of diving at depth (60-100 ft), and some confidence in U/W navigation. They also get to taste some other things they might be interested in. Sure, someone who has been diving for years and years in all kinds of conditions may not need that....but they had to learn it (on their own) anyway (I hope). AOW is not technical training, it is not a specialty course in deep, or nav, or night, or buoyancy, or whatever. And even as limited as it is, it might be taught poorly. That is not the course's fault.
The point here is that GUE Fundamentals is a good course...but it does not replace the AOW for someone who is a new diver and wishing to go on some charters that might go a little deeper or requires some navigational skills. If I wanted to get the equivalent of Fundies I guess I'd find a good instructor and do PPB and Intro to Tech...but then in addition I'd still want to do a Deep class plus a Navigation class and a full Rescue class.