This an interesting one. I'm in my late fifities and learned to fly only four years ago. My age makes me conscious of my limitations unlike a 21 year old!
The first thing I did after getting a PPL was to get an IMC and I use navaids and GPS for most flying and work hard on RT quality.
I am lucky to have flown with some very experienced IR pilots before I learned and gained from their knowledge of procedures and RT.
I think it's this last area that may be the issue. When I got my PPL I was a basically competent handling pilot in reasonable weather and could just about map read reliably, but if it wasn't for my friends I would have been a total tyro on Navaids and RT. Their example helped with IMC training and that in turn consolidated all three skills because my precision in handling improved greatly, and my Navaid usage and RT became almost professional!