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Bryan, your knowledge and your skill at writing have combined once again to create an outstanding article. I don't know how you do it.

Great article with great pictures.

Well Annette, I think you had better add Rigging Innovations to your list of "tier-A manufacturers".
Strong Enterprises is less known for its solo rigs too, but they have been around a long time too.

Thank you very much for the article about Dan.

Nice article Annette. I have been thinking about many of these issues for some time now, and have observed some of the problems they create, but you have put them in writing in an interesting way, and have introduced a few others.
One thing that I would like to point out is that no one is holding a gun to anyone's head to be a sponsored or professional skydiver or BASE jumper. There are other ways of making a living, thereby allowing your sport to remain fun, (and perhaps safer.)

I don't know if posting a message here alerts all of the other people who have posted, so maybe you all will just need to check back.
To answer Brian's questions, yes, I think that many DZs and instructors are not willing to spend the time needed to teach the canopy control needed for a first-time or low-time jumper. It is easier to treat them like "radio-controlled students."
I know of one drop zone that I used to frequent where the DZOs often used very tight control over the radio rather than letting the student make small errors and therefore learn. I think they wanted to have the student land very close in the nice grassy landing area because they thought that this was giving the student better "customer service" than landing them further away. (It is also possible that the DZOs thought that there was less possibility of a landing injury if they landed in the nice level, grassy area. This is a valid concern even if the students have been taught to PLF well, especially if the fields surrounding the landing area are rough.)
The times that I was the instructor on the radio, I tried to say very little so that they could learn. I had several students thank me profusely for not saying much on the radio.
I have been noticing a very good trend in instruction now where students are not even told about the radio until very late in the first jump instruction. This causes the student to pay more attention to the instruction about landing rather than assuming that someone will be doing it for them.