I've read a lot of back and forth about certifying agencies and DIR in
this newsgroup. From my own limited experience, I think a diver should
be given some sort of limited temporary certification initially instead
of the OW certification. No matter what kind of job my certifying
agency and instructor did, I was not really much of a diver until I
logged 50 dives. Not that 50 is a magic number, but that's about the
time I felt I really understood the risks involved in the sport. I had
experienced some "diver-created" crises like forgetting my weight belt
and going down without my air turned on.

Part of the problem is the wide variety of diving that's out there with
only one basic certification. All my dives have been and will be
tropical. I do my diving exclusively in the Caribbean; other divers
spend most of their hours in quarries or lakes. So it's hard to do what
I suggest - issue a sort of learner's permit and then certify the diver
who stays with the sport and develops a certain level of skill.