...What would you guys who were actually diving back then do to set up the first agency?
Personally I believe that OW, AOW, Rescue, Decompression Procedures, and Nitrox should be combined back into Scuba 101. It is irrelevant if they never dive past 60' (yeah right), get into deco, or dive Nitrox. It is all about getting a complete understanding so they don’t feel like they are following rules blindly — or ask question on Scubaboard after a sleepless night like “Will I die because I missed my safety stop?”.
Also, the swimming test should be real and without equipment… except maybe for a thin wetsuit for the few individuals who can’t float with a full lung full or air. Sure anybody can swim with fins; the question is will the freak-out when a fin or mask strap breaks? Knowing they can pass a swim test without gear goes a long way to reduce that risk. A wetsuit isn’t going to fail to give you some buoyancy no matter how badly things go wonky.
My class in 1962 was basically invented by a recreational diver, and a mechanical engineer in real life, who taught himself from the US Navy Manual and sharing information with friends in the 1950s. This and the great majority of classes in those days were on the order of six lectures, six pool sessions, six days of ocean dives that included snorkeling and two tanks, and spread over at least six weeks. We had time to really absorb the subject matter and acclimatize so we really were safe to dive unsupervised when the card was signed.
This “norm” changed mainly because tropical resorts, mostly outside the US, were offering quickie courses to tourists. The fledgling agencies responded by dumbing down and separating courses instead of learning how to educate customers why a 6-6-6-6-style course is in their best interest. A very few instructors on Scubaboard appear to have mastered that art.
Let the existing agencies continue to offer their watered-down courses to the tourists. It is time for the industry to buck-up and realize what a disservice they are doing to most divers and offer an integrated alternative instead of a bunch of disconnected merit badges that too few divers get anyway.