This argument has raged for a long time between aeros and IMC.
IMC is only a "get you out of trouble" rating if that is what you make it. If you practice what you learnt in an IMC equipped aircraft and stay current it is just as good as an IR without the airways flying.
Most affordable GA aircraft around at the moment are not even capable of doing airways flight but are capable of non airways IMC flight. In addittion to my own aircraft which is fully IFR equipped (other threads have pics) I fly a Senneca with a flight director and altitude pre-select autopilot. Very easy to fly in cloud and was done on an IMC.
I went from more than a years IMC flying into IR training and found it easy, the adjustment was filing of IR flight plans and airways flying not how to fly on the guages or do a procedure. The procedures were easy, having done plenty of practice down to published mininma using the IMC.
It is easy for people to do a basic IMC rating and then never fly another approach or even in a cloud between renewals thinking the IMC is there "get you out of trouble" ticket when in fact it is probably there own funeral ticket. IMC requires currency and for a lot of people that provides it's own fun just as hurling around the sky doing aeros provides fun for others.
As I said before each to there own.