Who defines "minimum needs for recreational diving"? Even the major training agencies, which have been the subject of criticism (deserved or not) for setting their standards at the bare minimum to keep basic recreational divers safe, appear to have been upping their game in recent years. If I recall some prior discussions correctly, PADI now teaches basic gas planning and has students plan a complete dive on their own. That says to me that dive planning is getting more attention than it did when I took the basic OW class 20 years ago. I was woefully unprepared to plan dives. Many of us suspected that we should be doing a little more than just jumping in and hoping for the best using the information available from our instruments, but few of us did anything to rectify that. I don't know exactly what PADI requires in the basic OW course these days with respect to dive planning, but I am guessing the instructors who take it seriously teach more or less what has been suggested in this thread (aside from the discussion on gradient factors).
IMO OW courses recommend no deeper than 60 ft. So why train beyond teh skills you need for 60 ft? Ritgt or wrong I am viewing this as an admission that after finishing OW they know divers are going beyong the recommended 60 ft depth and are trying to head things off with dive planning, Under the current structure with Ow being what it is i would expect the most appropriate place for planning of any extent would be AOW for dives to 100 ft. Planning is there to define limits and prevent becoming a statistic. would anyone plan a dive in a pool? The only reall dive planning in shallow water is how not to run out of air. that does not need planning. There is no planning to avoid deco in shallow water. If I were a student I sould say that any phase in OW is a waste of time other than laying the basic planning concepts for further traing to build on. Here is what I envision planning to be for an OW outside the training environment. my tank has x gas i use it this fast , i have x minutes at 45 ft of gas. NDL is say for argument 90 min so no deco threat. That is all moot because you should have a SPG or other like device. The most you can realistically plan is what you are going to do and define the buddy pairs.. Though tasking enough for a new OW its really just jumping through hoops with out gain.