Since when do we learn only from our own experience? I thought the whole point of having a brain is that we can learn from the experience of others, and exercise judgment about the increased marginal risk (however small) of adding additional potential failure points to our equipment. I thought that was half the reason for creating this kind of forum.
How many of the people advocating the use of long hoses have actually experienced *true* OOA emergencies with both long hoses and short hoses? Much less enough of them to make probabilistic judgments about which hose routing option is actually most likely to work smoothly / least likely to get fouled up when it matters, assuming divers of same experience and the difference in hoses and routing being the only variable? And what the hell is going on with a diver who has had that happen so many times that he can tell me *from his own experience* what is statistically most likely to work best in a true emergency? And why should I listen to him if he's having that kind of experience all the time?
A swivel is a potential failure point. Increased complexity almost always means increased risk of failure. The risk of failure may be small - and I have no idea how many swivels have ever failed suddenly, or whether they are likely to spring small and non-catastrophic leaks first so they can be replaced - but if the risk of failure is increased and the consequences of a failure are unacceptable, it's a perfectly reasonable judgment to make that the risk should not be taken, when the only upside is a slight improvement in comfort (which might be accomplished by other means).