Forgive me if I rehash, but after reading about 1/2 of the thread (arbitrary pages after the first couple and last couple) I want to say that one thing I noticed from scanning this thread and from my experience operating a boat in the Caribbean, MANY divers choose to disregard the instructions of the crew during the dive briefings.
Our policy was to have people hang on the surface tag line and take fins off before arriving at the ladder, pass them up once they grasp the ladder and then come up the ladder in full kit using BOTH hands.
We had this procedure for a reason. We briefed ALL divers on this for a reason. We explained our reasons. Still guests would invariably insist on doing it their own way. If you have issues with the boat's policy, all I can say is discuss it with the crew before hand!!! I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that "your" unique situation or requirement probably is not all that unique. We had seen a number of either look really stupid or put themselves into harm's way by not following our directions. In our case, the warm water meant that **most** divers were wearing full foot fins. Those with open heels were more than welcome to wrist their fins, but we did REQUIRE that guests have BOTH hands available for climbing the ladder since the typical day for us involved 2-3 foot chop crossing on top of a 5-6 swell...
Again we had seen most ways possible to screw up getting back on the boat. So its not always tip scrounging service, or DM's trying to impose their wills, but often a boat policy IS based on how things actually work or don't work. Except for one collosal **** of a local DM, we all had no problems explaining the why or how, and if your needs don't fit, there was no reason not to communicate and find something that WILL work
Why some people insist on trying to reinvent the wheel I will never know.
[/soapbox]
sorry guys.. long day offline... I needed to vent