Decompression illness should be viewed as probabilistic as opposed to deterministic. We got our decompression tables by pure brute force experimentation. We have augmented this data by the probabilistic calculation of risk. The five advances are what we now have but they point to a much more complex and less predictable model for decompression and make it difficult to postulate where decompression illness is improbable. We cannot use the old classification system any more but it is still useful as a clinical descriptor system.
Decompression illness is a continuum from no symptoms or signs to severe multisystem involvement.
If we use the more descriptive terminoolgy, we have a wider spectrum of of clinical syndromes. Finally one last soap box statement, think of decompression illness as an immune phenomenon.