I disagree with your assessment of the ease of tying and identifying a specific non-"perfect" form of ABOK 1411 (Figure 8 Bend). It is the additional twists which make them less easy to tie and identify...
You disagree, obviously, but you are wrong...As I have said in
http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3618.msg20727#msg20727the "other", "not-perfect" forms of the Figure * bends have
less twists, not more, and are at least as easily to tie as any of them, because they are tied by the same number of tucks. The so-called "perfect form"should need more objective reasons to justify its name...So, because those properties you claim do not exist, and there is
"absence of other more compelling factors to differentiate the bends", the arbitrary use of the name "perfect form" for any single one of those 17 bends, is a misnomer.
As far as what teachers teach, it is more-or-less expected that they will teach the "tried and true" (meaning tested and it worked, repeatedly), especially if life or limb is at risk. There is no other reasonable alternative and has nothing to do with their ignorance or pretending to know everything. While you see ignorance, I see the current state-of-the-art.
Those 17 bends are
not tried, so we can
not tell if they are truly more safe or not. I know that it is "expected" that the teachers teach only what they know, but they should teach also that this is only what
they know, and not the "best" or "perfect, as they always do ! The "alternative"e is to test those bends, and prove which is safer, and how much safer it is. So, teaching only the so-called "best" or perfect" form of the many figure 8 bends, is only
a proof of ignorance and pretension of omniscience. While you see
current state-of-art (sic), I see only ignorance and easy parroting. Fortunately, progress of materials save the poor pupils of those "teachers", but this has a side effect : Those people continue to walk around telling everybody that, in the field of their "speciality", anything that should and could be known is already known, so further research is useless.