As somebody already mentioned, any course you take, the result will reflect on the instructor not the agency. I agree with that 100%. What makes GUE different is the training program that their instructors have to go through.
Their training is top notch and Quality Control is the highest in the US (my opinion). That is the reason why there are very few GUE instructors out there.

I am considered an "Old School" Instctructor. I went through the NAUI program all the way to Instructor. I crossovered to PADI for the access to better training materials (back in the 85), and have continued through the years picking up TDI and HSA.

I have been actively teaching since 1980. I looked into becoming a GUE instructor and realized the my age and time would not allow to go through their program. If somebody came to me and asked what instructor program he should look at, I would tell him to go GUE.

There is a alot of politics in this sport. I would say look at the instructor, the content of the course, ask for personal references, and dive with the people that he or she has trained.

I did not know anything about GUE/DIR till a buddy of mine came back from a trip with his family to Grand Cayman. He dove with Ocean Adventures, which happens to be a GUE/DIR compliant facility. He was impressed and being the Scientist that he is (Chemical Engineer) he evaluated and questioned them about the GUE/DIR program. He came home enthusiastic and told me that I should look into it.

Being the skeptic that I am, I started looking into it. I started asking around and I got a lot of information from a lot of sources. A lot of it was personal opionions on the people who ran GUE, rather than the program itself. From my esteemed "old school" instructors, the comment was "they do it like we used to". So I did more research. I finally came up with a way to find out if it really was what they (GUE) was spouting about.

I am married to a Scuba Instructor who has been actively teaching since 1985. I gave her the DIR Fundamentals course for a Christmas present. She flew to Georgia and took the class. She came back with the answers to my skeptical questions. She was a convert. We implemented what she learned from her class in our teaching (better buddy system, better buoyancy control, access to BP/wing for our students, acces to long hose, etc).

I was too busy doing playing Tournament Paintball all over the country. I quit doing that and took my DIR F class. We try to instill how we dive with all our classes. We are hoping to get a GUE instrcutor in our area soon. For right now we have to fly somebody in to teach any of the GUE courses.

I hope my story gives a little enlightening on this subject.

Still blowing bubbles after 36 years,
Jim