Thanks a lot for all the input!
I really appreciate the whole bashing thing has been kept out of it too! It's both tiring and useless. Echoing a concern expressed by someone else, I would like my training to push me a bit. Not sure I want someone beating up on me, but I really want to know that I can actually handle various situations and just be a responsible and respectful diver. I liked the PADI OW book and I am interested to hear about the Adventures book. To be honest, though, I thought a little more could have been done with both the pool and OW dives. I suppose mainly I just need to find good, experienced people to dive with and learn from their example? I guess it also seems to me that deep, nav. and night SHOULD be included. But I can just pick do them if I go with PADI ...