Matt, we've gone around before, and really, it's not so much that I'm trying to give you a hard time, but that I really, seriously disagree with your premises.
I don't disagree that there may be benefit in someone hiring a DM to dive with him. I am lucky enough not to have to deal with instabuddies unless I want to, since I travel with at least one built-in buddy (my husband) and sometimes more. If I traveled a lot alone, and given the stories we hear here about random buddies, I might well choose the route of hiring a DM to dive with me, simply because I could dictate to that person how I wanted the dive to be done, and I could hope the person would have the skills to do it that way. (Stay together, follow the plan, stay within pre-agreed gas limits.) As someone who's been diving actively for seven years, I can pretty much take up the slack for an inattentive buddy, or even one who deliberately violates the limits we set (so long as I am willing to go where they go). But a less experienced diver might be highly stressed in that kind of situation, and no matter who you are, it's irritating in the extreme when you have to give up enjoying your own dive because you have no time to do anything but watch your buddy.
The only place where you and I really differ is that, at least from what you write, it appears that you really don't feel competent to do the dives you are doing unless you have someone with professional training to prevent something bad from happening to you. If you truly feel that way, you are diving above your comfort level, and that's not really a great idea. Your comment that you are better protected from DCS if you have a DM with you really bothers me, because, as I said above, there are really only two ways in which a DM can protect you from DCS. One is to make sure you stay within no-deco limits, which really is your responsibility and should be entirely within your capabilities, and the other is to prevent you from reaching an unsafe ascent rate, which again is something you ought to be able to do for yourself -- and if you can't do it, you should be keeping your dives extremely shallow and simple until you can.
Basic OW dives are actually pretty simple. You descend, you swim around, you check your gas, you begin to ascend when you hit your predetermined gas limits, and you control your ascent to a safe rate until you reach the surface. All of these things should be within your capacity as someone with a number of dives past open water. I do understand the desire to have someone with familiarity with the site to plan the course, and to serve as some insurance against people losing the anchor line or boat. I ceded responsibility for navigation to my buddy/mentor when I was new, for a number of dives . . . but they were all done in places where, if worst came to worst, I could just surface and swim in on top. I do think a lot of divers follow guides on dives where they couldn't retrace their steps if the dive guide evaporated, and there are issues with that, especially in more remote places, but I don't get the feeling that navigation is the only thing you're expecting the DM to do for you.
If you want to buy yourself insurance by hiring a DM to dive with you, be my guest. But I really think you should give some serious thought to how much that person can or should be responsible for your safety, and I think you should identify the diving skills you feel you aren't capable of safely doing for yourself, and getting some mentoring or additional training to remedy those deficiencies.