Read ScubaBoard long enough, and you will encounter hundreds of posts ridiculing specialties for skills that people feel do not even need any instruction, let alone a multiple dive specialty class. Most of that ridicule is misplaced, because for some people that full specialty is both valuable and necessary.
I don't think anyone would protest against doing full specialties for:
1) navigation: a fundamental skill, and one that is best covered in depth.
2) deep: a good instructor will get into issues of gas density, narcosis, emergency management, etc
3) search & recovery.
4) nitrox
5) dry suit
Now I will agree that none of these courses are "necessary." Through trial and error, people can become proficient. Or possibly ingrain some poor habits. Even though I live in a place with year round diving with a very active community, it would take me years to get at the same level of a bare bones training program.
While there are no dive skills/dives required for nitrox, it is still a no brainer to take.
But for others it isn't. For some people, what they learn on a single dive in a course is all they really want or need. They won't know that, however, unless they give it a try. The original idea of the AOW class was to introduce different kinds of diving to people to see if any of those interested them. If they were interested, they could go on for more. If they were not interested, they could look elsewhere for areas of training they liked and needed.
I have difficulty with the premise that people would have everything figured out for nav, deep, s&r from just one dive. There is a dramatic difference between the first and last dives of these specialities in terms of requirements.
That still makes sense to me. Get an introduction and decide if you need or want more training. If you do, go on and finish the specialty. If not, look for some other area to spend both your money and your training time. If you sign up for the full specialty and decide after the first dive that you have had enough, then you will spend the rest of the class regretting that mistake.
I see things completely differently. I don't believe that the first dive of specialties that tend to be dramatically light compared to later ones are a good indicator. I've never heard of someone saying because they took AOW that they saw that they needed/wanted to take more courses. Or that they didn't. Knowing what I know now, I would have gone the alternate path to AOW, as I do get the requirement from many dive charters for it. Would seeing colors disappear as I dive deeper or seeing slightly different depth values on different dive computers/depth gauges tell me that I need to learn more about diving deep? Or doing a square pattern/out-and-back tell me that I need to do a course to challenge my navigational skills?
@MaverickDiver94,
This really comes down to your goals. You say you want to become a good/safe diver, hence my recommendation for full courses. Focus on courses where you obtain skills. Talk to to potential instructors on how their course will contribute to that goal. Get into the details of the skills learn and very important, what the pass criteria is for each skill.
Finally, order
@Jim Lapenta 's book: SCUBA: A Practical Guide to Advanced Level Training, Vol. 2 (sorry for not posting a link, but SB now messes those up). It will guide you with information that will assist you in finding the right instructor for you.
I am genuinely sorry that you did not achieve the confidence and skillset to become an autonomous diver. That is actually a WRSTC guideline that your instructor failed to meet with you. The fact that you are aware of this and wish to address it in further training says a lot about you and I am quite confident you will reach your desired skill level in short order.
Good luck!