Diver0001,
"You should, however, ask yourself if it's wise for a monitor on a montored forum to be flaming people."
It is not. I have not seen any flames. You said, "If you do this too early in the process it will only cause many students to forget some of the important and directly relevant things"
That dog won't hunt. You are saying people can't learn the material in an OW class. That is not true. Your reason (sorry if you took the word excuse as a flame) for not teaching a comprehensive course isn't valid. If your reason were valid, those of us who do teach a comprehensive class would have experiences to back your posuition. The opposite is true. You need to think of another reason if you want to justify leaving important material of of the OW class. IMHO, explain why you do something a certain way is giving a reason, coming up with a new explaination when the old one is proven uinvalid is making excuses. Pointing this out is not flaming.
"Your take is then, "so what?, take longer then". I would agree but one of the things that a PADI instructor can't do very easily is to re-write the book because of their personal opinions or preferences."
If you agree the system is broken, you have an obligation, as part of the system to try to change it. If you cannot get necessary changes through, you are less than ethical if you continue to use that system, move to a system that does allow you to add important material to your class and to require mastery of that material.
"In particular, PADI doesn't like 'task loading'"
Task loading is adding so many tasks to a person that they are unable to successfully complete the tasks. I am also against task loading. OTOH, it is possible to train people to handle additional tasks, one at a time, so that the tasks learned earlier become automatic and they are able to handle many tasks at the same time without task loading. In your example of mask clearing while hovering, it would be task loading to teach mask clearing while hovering and expect success. If, OTOH, you were to teach one of the tasks and have the student practice it until they are very comfortable and had mastered the skill, you could then add in the other half without task loading.
"making students think that they need to learn and/or do things that aren't in the curriculum in order to pass the course"
God forbid you might actually teach someone to dive.
"For example, an OWD needs to hover in mid water for 1 min to pass the buoyancy skill.................How about 59 seconds of good hovering and then slightly touching the bottom with the tip of one fin?"
That's a failure. Students are required to master the required skills. If a student hovers for 1 minute, but is having great difficulty, they have not mastered the skill and have not passed the requirement. Mastering a skill requires the student to be able to preform it on demand with ease. Anything else is failure and more practice. One problem is too many instructors don't know how to teach the skills.
"Which brings us to problem number 1 in the PADI system. Quality control."
Can't argue there, except to disagree with it's rating as # 1. Problems, IMHO, go much deeper.
"Say, for example, that an OW diver needed to make his first 10 dives with a DM"
This is already accomplished, not by requiring it, but by training them so poorly, they have little choice. It's a very bad idea. It trains divers to be dependent.
"AOW started at dive 25"
I encourage my students to get about 25 dives in before coming back for advanced training. I then actually train them in a course that requires 10 dives, I don't sell them a card after diving 5 times for fun. AOW is another joke.
"Rescue started at dive 50"
Rescue needs to start in the OW course. My OW dents can bring up an unconscious diver from the bottom and tow while rescue breathing. This is a Y requirement. They can rescue a panicked victim at the surface, another Y requirement.
