Well, my first post replying to this was apparently lost in the ether.
This doesn't make sense to me. First off, whatever happened to buddy breathing? Even if the donor is using a double hose, you should be able to buddy breathe. Is this skill not even taught anymore? The lack of an octo didn't kill people for the decades when they weren't common. Why would it now? And what would you do if you did grab that octo, and it didn't work?
Secondly, I don't understand this willingness to rely on others. When I plan a dive, I assume that in an emergency, I will be alone. A buddy can swim off, and usually right when you need them. I learned this lesson the (almost) hard way. We were diving in 45ft of water, I got too close to a submerged tree, and got tangled in monofilament line. Guess what? I didn't have a knife. Yeah, a stupid mistake, but that's why you have a buddy, right? I watched that buddy swim away. Now, my goose was about 45% cooked at that moment. I tried to free myself, and couldn't. It was time to ditch the gear, keeping my regulator in hand as I chewed my way out. Luckily, the buddy made a reappearance at that moment, and cut me out. In a later incident, we were night diving, I stopped for a moment, and my buddy AND the instructor disappeared. I looked for them per PADI training, and surfaced. They didn't notice I was gone for almost 5 more minutes. If I were having an OOA emergency and relying on them, I would have been toast.
My point is not to dictate your diving, but rather to point out what I consider to be a dangerous idea. If you are accepting someone as a buddy because you feel that you can rely on their gear, you are placing yourself in a compromised position. That gear may fail, and that buddy may not be there when you need them.