I also did AOW so I wouldn't have to deal with being denied a deep dive. Did the AOW in the Maldives where we actually did all our training dives on reefs that were enjoyable dives, so I did not really feel like I was losing out on time because each dive was a great experience. Yes it's a bit expensive, but you're paying for the dives anyways, might as well pay for the AOW now and then not have to have an issue with this again. Obviously diving deep shouldn't be done just for the sake of going deep, and to be honest having done a few deep dives I really didn't like them as there was little to see and it just blew through my air quicker and loaded up my nitrogen more than I would have liked. Obviously some things require deep dives (like wrecks, etc), so it's good to do the AOW and be done with it like others said.