My experience was the same 2 years ago. Strange thing is that they did not know what a trimix instructor card was, haha. They only knew about the first level of decompressiondiving on air to 40m.
I also do technical dives solo sometimes. Don't see any problems with it. But I think the first thing that must change is that it is more accepted in recreational diving. The buddy system was introduced then when regulators etc were not that good. Now people think that the same time, same ocean principle is safe, but solo not.
The most funny thing was a discussion I had with a DM with 63 dives who was telling me that he was guiding and that we had to trust him. Solo was dangerous. I said: do you think you can dive solo safe for 9 people now? He looked, but this was the truth, was guiding 8 divers, so then you are diving for 9 divers solo, even if you say that there are buddyteams. I think 3-4 solodives must be required to finish a DM course. It does not tell you that you must do solodiving after it, but at least you should expect that a DM is self reliant then. But that seems to be impossible, 60 dives for DM, 100 for a solo cert.
But every technical diver must be self reliant/sufficient. You can choose to do the things with a buddy or in a team, but there is written in some iantd books: If you don't think you can do the dive solo, don't do the dive. And I think this is true.
But solodiving is not for everybody, not for every recreational diver, not for every technical diver. But every technical diver must be self sufficient.
