I agree with your post - I would suggest that it's the lax standards of whatever shop is doing the certifying, rather than PADI's standards, that puts people who aren't proficient divers into the water. Short of having a PADI headquarters representative at each shop as they do the classes, there's not much that can be done, unfortunately.
A bit more rigor in the instructor qualification system would go a long way. On demand, one off programs maybe more marketable, but they are lower in quality and from my observations generally turn out an inferior product.
... I was thinking more along the lines of dive trips, boats, infrastructure, R&D and affordability (if there are only a tiny amount of people in a sport, companies won't put much money into advancing the technology, or if they do, it would be exorbitantly expensive), etc.
About the only technology advance that I've seen in the time I've been diving are dive computers, and that was more the application of technologies from outside diving to a diving problem. What advances are you referring to?
Generally, I agree with what you're saying. Unfortunately, as with the Whytecliff example, all the training in the world won't necessarily stop somebody from panicking and making dumb decision when put into the real world.
In my experience, the better trained an individual is the less likely they are to panic or to make dumb decisions.
You're right - a thinking, questioning person is always better, in ANY field, not just diving.
I want to bring it back to the OP - having a cert card for everything is an option. There's nothing stopping somebody from simply buying their own gear and going diving without a day of instruction in their life. But offering classes to enhance somebody's knowledge of a particular subset is never a bad thing.
I don't think anyone disagrees with you here, what is in question is the slicing up of the basic diver class into a bunch of separately priced products so that, in the opinion of some of us here, critical items like basic rescue and good buoyancy control as well as ample supervised practice opportunity have been eliminated.
You can get your driver's license just by proving, basically, that you can control the car. But Porsche and BMW still offers driving schools to further refine and master your car - that's how I view the optional certs.
The adequacy or inadequacy of driver training is not the discussion here, adequacy of driver training lies not in the course but in the testing of the result by the state (which may be adequate or inadequate also, but that's a different issue.
Edit: I'm not arguing for or against anything in particular. Yes, there is enough wiggle room in the PADI certs for a lax shop to certify people who shouldn't necessarily be certified. However, in general, from what I saw of PADI, as long as you're a competant, concious, thinking person, you should be able to get the skills and knowledge out of the Open Water where you'll be comfortable diving. Unfortunately, that sometimes is too much to ask of people.
Being self-taught myself (well ... taught by my Dad at the same time he was self-teaching himself) I suspect that most competent, conscious, thinking people provided with a decent text and time to practice in a pool will do OK, with or without the standard instructor being part of the mix. Where this falls apart is when they move to the open water and have to deal with a rapidly deteriorating environment. Unless they're highly experienced ocean people, then they are in deep do-do.
