You literally said reels are less safe. That absolutely means the same thing as "it's more dangerous." You said many people have had runaway ascents due to reels, ridiculously overstated. Have there been cases where it's happened? Absolutely. Have there been cases where spools have done the same? Absolutely. If you're speculating based on hearsay and you don't know why you do something, you probably should not comment. Especially, you shouldn't try and pass it off your comments as gospel because you've taken one fundies course.
Here's a dirty little secret about fundies, it doesn't bestow upon you all the knowledge and experience of the entire scuba diving world, despite what many fundies students would like people to believe. You'd be hard pressed to find a real GUE (read that as done something beyond fundies) that will tell you that they knew everything after their fundies course, because they realized that they had a mountain more to learn.
If you can't think of any reason why you would lock off your spool while holding a stop, you don't have enough experience to be commenting about why you shouldn't. Check out the ISE video, 4:30ish in, Achim locks off his spool. Huh, a GUE Tech II instructor locking off his spool. Check out "SMB Deployment V2" on youtube, Clare Gledhill, another GUE isntructor, locks off her spool around the 2:30 minute mark. That's 2 GUE instructors that do it. Not to mention the myriad of videos of other demonstrations from other instructors from other certifying agencies, recreational and technical. A thinking diver (that's a large part of what fundies tries to instill) would easily be able to think of several reasons why it may be appropriate, even at a recreational level.
I guarantee your GUE instructor locks off spools too. Ask your instructor when and why if you can't think of any. Until then, I'd recommend that you reevaluate your position in the hierarchy of knowledge, and refrain from trying to make bold statements that are beyond the scope of your experience level. This is a habit, and it's not a great one when surrounded by the level of experience of some of the posters on this site.
I get it, you're proud you passed fundies (rec or tech pass?) and think that gives you some greater level of expertise, but you've seemingly also bought into the old GI3 idea that it's DIR or DIW, and come hell or high water you're going to tell everyone how they're doing it wrong, even if it's a topic you know absolutely nothing about (a rebreather thread comes to mind).... There's a metric boat load of experience on this site, realize that you are at the low end of the totem pole in the grand scheme of things and take the opportunity to learn from others instead of dismissing them out of some misguided inflated sense of self.
While we're at it, so that you know what experience I draw upon, I am a CCR/Cave/Technical diver, certified on multiple units, dive OC backmount, sidemount, and no-mount, with stages, scooters, and DPV's, and whose typical dive time runs on the order of 4-8 hours in everything from warm tropical calm waters to 1 degree black water with current and open water drifting decompression. I haven't done it all, but I've done a bit. And I am by far not the most experienced person on this site. Not by a mile. This isn't a "who's got the bigger dive boner" contest, but you need to understand the level of expertise of those people who are engaging in a debate.
Here's a dirty little secret about fundies, it doesn't bestow upon you all the knowledge and experience of the entire scuba diving world, despite what many fundies students would like people to believe. You'd be hard pressed to find a real GUE (read that as done something beyond fundies) that will tell you that they knew everything after their fundies course, because they realized that they had a mountain more to learn.
If you can't think of any reason why you would lock off your spool while holding a stop, you don't have enough experience to be commenting about why you shouldn't. Check out the ISE video, 4:30ish in, Achim locks off his spool. Huh, a GUE Tech II instructor locking off his spool. Check out "SMB Deployment V2" on youtube, Clare Gledhill, another GUE isntructor, locks off her spool around the 2:30 minute mark. That's 2 GUE instructors that do it. Not to mention the myriad of videos of other demonstrations from other instructors from other certifying agencies, recreational and technical. A thinking diver (that's a large part of what fundies tries to instill) would easily be able to think of several reasons why it may be appropriate, even at a recreational level.
I guarantee your GUE instructor locks off spools too. Ask your instructor when and why if you can't think of any. Until then, I'd recommend that you reevaluate your position in the hierarchy of knowledge, and refrain from trying to make bold statements that are beyond the scope of your experience level. This is a habit, and it's not a great one when surrounded by the level of experience of some of the posters on this site.
I get it, you're proud you passed fundies (rec or tech pass?) and think that gives you some greater level of expertise, but you've seemingly also bought into the old GI3 idea that it's DIR or DIW, and come hell or high water you're going to tell everyone how they're doing it wrong, even if it's a topic you know absolutely nothing about (a rebreather thread comes to mind).... There's a metric boat load of experience on this site, realize that you are at the low end of the totem pole in the grand scheme of things and take the opportunity to learn from others instead of dismissing them out of some misguided inflated sense of self.
While we're at it, so that you know what experience I draw upon, I am a CCR/Cave/Technical diver, certified on multiple units, dive OC backmount, sidemount, and no-mount, with stages, scooters, and DPV's, and whose typical dive time runs on the order of 4-8 hours in everything from warm tropical calm waters to 1 degree black water with current and open water drifting decompression. I haven't done it all, but I've done a bit. And I am by far not the most experienced person on this site. Not by a mile. This isn't a "who's got the bigger dive boner" contest, but you need to understand the level of expertise of those people who are engaging in a debate.