ab diving with a weight harness

I think the anchor line is more dangerous than a harness.  NOT a good idea IMHO

But if it were a heavy and stiff variety of rope, enganglement would be unlikely.

IMHO, being neutrally buoyant at the depth you're gonna be hunting at is the best scenario. The most important thing is to be positive at about 15', the common depth where shallow water blackout occurs. Having just lost my weight belt on a night lobster dive (with tanks), I can't picture diving without a weight belt.
When I'm halibut diving it's always a pain if I go too deep or too shallow. I wear 18 pounds with my fairly new 7-8 mil wetsuit. That makes me neutral in the 12-20' range; if I go outside that range I either struggle to stay off the bottom or to stay down, something that has distracted me and spooked a fish. Same with blue water hunting; maybe more so 'cause you don't notice you're sinking 'till your ears tell you.
I'd like to get a thinner wet suit, especially for summer in Linda Mar, but I'm not really uncomfortable in a thick suit, especially after 3 hours in the water. The cold catches up after awhile.
I've heard the harness weights are hard to dump, and also really nice on the back. I used to have a lot of back pain from arching while free diving; ankle weights helped. Now I don't seem to need them. I wouldn't use the harness weights unless I needed them for back pain; if I do a deep dive I surface with one hand on my belt release in case I start to get dizzy. I've heard of taking that a step further and actually releasing the belt latch and holding your hand on it 'till you reach the surface. If you black out, you'll definitely drop the belt then.
The thing I like about halibut free diving is that it seems really safe compared to ab diving, or rock fish spear fishing at a place like the Linda Mar wreck, or in kelp. Blue water diving seems safe too, at least until you get a fish. Then they can drown you.

I think the anchor line is more dangerous than a harness.  NOT a good idea IMHO

Yeah, not anything I'd want to do. Just the no flippers part creeps me out. But it was a funny site.  He rowed that pool-toy boat all the way out to the cove behind the north point at Caspar.  The guy is from Monterrey.  Not sure why I said that... no disrespect intended.

They do look cozy, and I have considered it many times, but in the end I don't.  The last 15 or so dudes they have recovered up her have ALL still had their belts on.  I want mine to be able to dump in a hot second.

Bigeye convinced me to try an old school rubber belt with the cam buckle and it is a HUGE improvement over a nylon belt.  The stretch keeps it tight, without constricting.  It also doesnt get loose as your suit compresses. It is also much easier to put on correctly while on the yak as it doesn't need to be adjusted. Plus, they are cheap!

Where can you find one of those rubber weight belts with the cam buckle?

Travis-any decent dive shop will have them

Can you use soft weights on a rubber belt?

Not the ones I've seen. I like hard weights more anyway though - much easier to rinse and dry.