You cherry pick a number of items as different manufacturers make different gear.
No, I cherry pick a number of items to illustrate my point.
I don’t believe in buying all gear from the same manufacturer. I have no interest in looking like a company’s catalog, unless it happens by chance.
I agree with you, 100%. Like I said, I don't disagree with
anything you've said. But I think I failed to clearly state the point I was trying to make.
In the specific context of GUE instructors suggesting Halcyon gear to students, I'm simply saying it's narrow-minded to assume the instructor does that specifically because of GUE/Halcyon relationships/history. As
@tbone1004 has pointed out, there's [usually] zero financial incentive for a GUE instructor to push Halcyon gear.
I'm just pointing out, from an instructor's perspective, it's
easy to suggest Halcyon gear to students. Halcyon makes (or re-brands, as I gather regarding regulators)...So let's say "Halcyon makes available under one label" GUE-compliant equipment, which is generally accepted to be high quality. Thus,
@EireDiver606's statement makes sense: "if they recommend Halcyon products,
it’s because it is in the student’s best interest."
Not because Halcyon gear is the best, or the least expensive, or the most available, or possibly any other reason except that it is a very known quantity - it
will work within the GUE contexts, and quality is generally high enough to not be a remote concern.
The other side of the coin is a student asking an instructor "what's a high quality, more affordable BP/W that works for this class?" Assume the instructor, like me, hasn't bought themselves a new BP/W in over a decade. The response might be "Halcyon is good, but Deep Sea Supply makes a great alternative....Oh, DSS went out of business? Huh...Well maybe Oxycheq. Oh, Oxycheq is comparably priced to Halcyon now? Huh...Well the internet seems to be happy with Deep6 gear, but I don't know, personally."
Or more specifically, a student asks, "what do you think of the XDeep Zeos?" Personally, I've never even heard of XDeep before your post. That's not meant as a statement about XDeep at all, simply that I'm not "in the know" enough to be familiar with them. Were I the instructor the student is asking, that reply could
easily be misconstrued as a negative statement against XDeep, which it absolutely is not intended to be.
The point I'm trying to make is that Halcyon is simply an easy and reliable single-point source for almost anything an upcoming GUE diver could need. To expect instructors to have a finger on the pulse of every model, or even every manufacturer, just isn't really reasonable. If the instructor
is the gearhead type, or often fields those questions, they may be very well informed and ready to answer with a multitude of options that aren't Halcyon. But for the full-time software developer who happens to teach GUE courses in their spare time, that level of knowledge might not be realistic. In the latter case, Halcyon is essentially the "easy button" the instructor can hit. Without personal exposure to a specific piece of H gear, they can still count on it being a quality choice. Other manufacturers may make a
fantastic doubles wing, and they might also offer a doubles bondage wing that fails the GUE litmus test. If the instructor says "oh yeah, those guys make good stuff!" and the student buys based on brand recognition alone, it could be a potentially expensive mistake, even if it were a fraction the price of a Halcyon wing to start.
Again, not arguing Halcyon is the best, or the best bang for the buck, or anything else. If anything, I'm arguing that nobody should trust a single person for all their equipment research needs. But what Halcyon
is, is a sure thing for instructors to suggest.