You shouldn't feel used. The common practice is for a teacher (and/or the same studio) to have the same routine for syllabus levels. But there are different practices for handling open-level choreography for pro-ams, and each has its pros and cons. A teacher may have the same choreography for all students, or not. Even in studios where the common practice is to have one routine for all, I have seen students (with help/recommendation from the teacher) choose a different routine, because it suits their abilities more, or showcases their better qualities. In that case, a student may chose an "older" (or newer) choreography. It is a common practice to refresh choreography every once in a while, so that the same teacher would have an archive, if you will, of choreography, or there is an institutional memory if the choreography is common to everyone in the studio.
In other words, choreography is not cast in stone for anyone. Now I have also seen students who do in fact hire choreographers. Of course this is done with the blessing of the teacher. It's not because the teacher is incompetent. Rather, it might be because the student wants to build rapport with a certain influential judge (guess who gets hired to do the choreography or consult on it), or wants the cache of working with a glamorous name, or wants to be different from the crowd, or wants the latest and most fashionable moves, etc. The same reasons can influence the teacher's position, of course, plus his/her interest in building good relations with friends/colleagues (the -you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours syndrome). There's nothing really wrong with that, if everyone is in agreement.
The other common practice is for a teacher to build a different choreography for each student. This is not as unusual as you seem to think. It might even be said that better teachers tend to adopt this method, precisely because of their interest in "what suits the student best." A competent teacher is not going to have difficulty remembering routines. I am now working with a teacher who is creating the routine. I take my lessons seriously, practice hard and so on. This teacher, on the other, is competing actively, so he has his own routine to work on, is very much in demand for shows, so he has his show routines to remember, and in fact just recently replaced his "old" show routines with a whole new set, and he competes regularly in the Showdance division, so that's one more routine to worry about. Guess which one of us actually remembers the routine from lesson to lesson? Not me!! This is not the first time I go through this, so I know it's not unusual. I, too, was puzzled when I first encountered this phenomenon. I quickly noticed that I learn a lot just from watching a pro create choreography. I cannot emphasize how important and helpful that has been in getting me to understand what dance is all about, and how "steps" are not the end all of dancing. My former teacher (he of the tremendous good looks
) used to try a step a few times, then add or change something, perhaps change the entry or the exit, or the timing, or the sequence of which group follows which. Among the benefits (besides the fascination of watching someone deal so creatively and easily with dance), was that I became able to very quickly learn steps and combinations, because they were an experiment and I was a part of it and I enjoyed it so much. My current teacher has a different approach. He has a clearer pre-conceived notion of what the choreography is going to look like, based on his judgement of what I can and cannot do comfortably, and his judgement of what movements would look good for me. So there is a lot less experimentation (there is still some of that, and the choreography changed slightly from lesson to lesson until the whole routine was finished). It was still very, very enjoyable, especially because he takes the time to answer my questions about "why are we doing this step?" or "why are we doing this step in this way?", and I get an explanation of the relation of the step to the whole dance, to the character of that particular dance (e.g. paso or rhumba), how it relates to previous and subsequent steps (speed vs. stretch and hold or creating a line, body movement steps vs. traveling steps, quiet internal steps vs. out there steps, approaching the partner and moving away, etc.), and often the origin of the movement which helps understand how it fits into the dance (I have learnt so much about the history of paso and its steps, and their origins in different other dance forms, and their cultural meaning, etc.)
What I am trying to say is that being part of creating choreography need not be a "waste of time and money".
And, because teachers try to follow recent trends in dancing, or have their own favorite moves (possibly because these moves look good on THEM, and they will be judged in open level)it is not unusual that parts of your choreography will be shared by other students. Consider yourself the lucky one because you were part of the creative process. The others missed out on that.
Now it seems to me that you have issues with your teacher, a feeling perhaps that you matter less to him than someone else. I cannot speak to that, and your feeling may well be founded. But I think that is the real reason you are unhappy about the choreography thing.
