start leaving the reserve or worse yet - stop joining? Recruiting
This would only further increase my chances at selecting for O5.
At least one nice side effect is the crazy stipulations just to be competitive will probably be reduced if the people thinking everything will just be 2 weeks here or there don't apply. For example regarding competitiveness, years of directly pertinent work experience and skills and holding graduate degrees that arguably contribute little to becoming a good officer in general and in X designator will likely play a smaller role.
This was my experience exploring the IWC: "Don't have 10+ years specifically in cybersecurity? You're completely uncompetitive for IP and CW. Oh you mainly work in software and some hardware? Doesn't count." For comparison, they're willing to send even humanities majors in some cases out of X random university and no work experience to be IPs on the active side. Not exactly mid-career professional white hat hackers.
Though it could be worse. Early last year, Air Force straight up told me they're not sending people to OTS until well into 2020 for most officer AFSCs. I forget if the Air National Guard was part of that, too, and I don't know if they rescinded this policy at some point. That means for people in their late 20s or older, it's either Army, Navy, or Coast Guard for both active and reserve, albeit with a reduced set of designators/MOSs to choose from due to age. And if you're past 32, scratch out the Army except for select MOSs.
Additionally, because the DCO program is so small and specialized within the Navy as a whole, it's a source of confusion. At least in my experience, just getting to DCOIC, especially amid changes to training and such, has been a long fight with lots of tricks and traps. The current changes to the program likely aren't helping. In this respect, consistency of training should be an improvement. Reservist makes very reasonable and sound points, but I also can't help but feel DCOIC is that forgotten middle child that only specific people (ie. DCOs and reserve ORs) seem to know about, whereas OCS/ODS are as prominent and familiar as the Empire State Building and there's no confusion there.
I'd propose that a person selected for commissioning in the Navy Reserve goes to Newport first thing (whether 2, 5, or however many weeks), just as is done with OCS. That way, they can take care of all the initial onboarding and training at a place that is built for it and knock out DCOIC (or whatever it will be called in the future). It's certainly more streamlined and more straight-forward than onboarding at a NOSC where sailors don't necessarily understand how an officer can be gained by a NOSC before going through Newport, or in some cases, don't know you could even join the Navy Reserve directly to begin with (that is, not coming from active duty). It would assuredly reduce the number and degree of headaches in the process.