tomboyy, Tobin is trying to make the point that, since most people haven't experienced a gear failure, they think the solution to any problem is more or different gear.
It IS possible to dive as a team and not have buddy failures. In the last oh, 500 or so dives with trained people, I have had ONE buddy separation event, due to an upcurrent, and it lasted three or four minutes before we (executing our understood protocol) were reunited.So.. 30 seconds into your separation you have a OOG incident... being self relient is a bad thing ? And if you count on your buddy instead of a pony bottle, you have a second person present to sort out entanglements, or navigational confusion, or lend you gas while you sort out a freeflow or some other possibly temporary issue.
There are two, philosophically diametrically opposed approaches to diving. Tobin and I use one; people who approach each dive as a solo event done simply for convenience with another person present use another. You can choose whichever you want, but it is not right to say that diving as a well-functioning team is impractical.I never said that. It is quite possible to do -- it just takes a commitment, and it takes some work.