If you need it for anything else VFR, stay on the ground!
Come to the UK then and have a little play in the airspace system here
Better still, do it from 16th July when your license gets instantly pulled on any CAS bust, and is not returned until the event has been investigated (if it is returned at all).
I think David Viewing has a very good point in that SA comes differently to different people. For example, when flying, I find it very helpful to first look at the compass rose on the HSI when told to turn onto some heading, so I can quickly see which way to turn. Another person might do the mental arithmetic on the present and desired headings... Also a new PPL pilot has very little SA, unless he did a lot of sim flying in the area beforehand. For my skills test I had to plan a flight to Panshanger, via Lydd, and I had no idea where Panshanger was... never heard of it.
Just to annoy Peter, I entered a multi-day nav competition not long ago. In my class, I had a choice of gold (without navaids) or silver (with GPS) category. I entered gold and won my class achieving more than double the points of anybody using a GPS. Yes, I was working my balls off, but I did it. Good DR still works, and I know it'll still work when every bit of electronics in the aeroplane goes tits-up.
I want to know how you manage to edit your posts after initially posting them, without the "edited" message showing
Your post doesn't annoy me because I NEVER SAID that GPS is necessary for navigation (**). I don't know why some people constantly keep equating "using the best tools" with "no other tool works" etc etc etc.
Of course DR works, but as you say you are working your bollox off to do it right, and when you are doing that you are
inevitably paying less attention to other stuff.... like looking out for traffic, monitoring engine parameters, etc.
You are also a high-hour pilot. Let me guess... 100+ hrs/year? The UK average is probably about 20 and most of them are really struggling, and due to the poor currency they stick to specially non-challenging mission profiles (the local burger run in excellent wx). I do 100-150hrs/year and yes I can do DR too, but I choose not to because it is a rubbish tool when one is after a low stress low workload flight.
(**) try it above an ovecast next time (legal for VFR for JAA PPL holders from 8th April 2012) or in 1500m visibility (legal for VFR for JAA PPL holders from 8th April 2012).