Andy, since it appears you have blind and obtuse loyalty to the small local dive shops, I'm not sure how I could have an intelligent and thoughtful debate with you.
Do you send your kids to a school whose teachers have no education background? Do you go to a restaurant that's empty because they can provide better service? Do you become a teacher or college professor at a local community college?
No, because its counter-intuitive to think this way and contrary to common sense, IMO... but then again I have an education background so I see things differently than, say, a politician or historian with zero comprehension of education.
"The DM course is not an instructor course, so I have no idea why you would state than an IDC centre would train it's DMs to be anything more than divers."
I would be extremely upset if I attended a DM course that spent valuable time on dive skills for people who showed up unprepared. Anybody taking a professional-level course needs to be fully prepared prior to arriving for the class and little to no time should be wasted on unskilled divers trying to become DMs. Someone who just wishes to become a great diver should just take Fundies if dive skills are all they're after, not Divemaster!
Imagine a university student attempting to become an English teacher when they can barely speak the language or a math teacher that cannot do long division, but they want desperately to teach the subject. Does the instructor change the course title to cater to them and screw over the rest of the students who actually do have the ability to be successful? No, not a good one anyway.
What is poppycock: the concept that we should always get trained in our backyard, at a LDS that caters to OW certifications and DSDs, charges ridiculous tuition rates, and schedules their pro training over a period of months instead of days or weeks. To me this is a reflection of lazy time-management, poor continuing education philosophy, and inadequate education background.
You want to be an X-Ray Tech you go to a technical college and get certified. You want to teach X-Ray Tech classes to students you go to a university that has the resources to create a polished instructor with an education background. This is not a difficult concept to grasp.