You sir, are a clever clever man, thank you for enlightening me.
I'm thinking that's what I'll do now - get my IR(R), do some of my hour building IFR, do an SEIR then CPL and the amount of money I've saved will be enough to do something like an FI which I'd probably have had to end up doing to find a job anyway, and as soon as there's a chance of a job in something bigger, knock the multi engine and multi crew stuff out.
So am I right in thinking there's no exam validity issues with potentially leaving it years after your SEIR/CPL to do an MEP/MEIR/MCC/JOC/UPRT, even with the uncertainty around my Austro exams.
I really don't get how I haven't heard about this approach yet, it seems like a no brainer... do people like getting into debt or something!?