The IMC is an instrument rating if taught correctly and is not a get you home rating. Anyone who enters into an IMC rating with the view of getting the rating as an emergency escape card on a bad day is fooling themselves.
Instrument flight requires constant practice to be current enough to use it anger. Whether it is an IMC rating or a rull IR the same skills need to be practiced.
Sustained flight in IMC is hard work. The IMC rating training tends to focus on shorter duration instrument only flight than the IR with a view to using it for getting above cloud into the cruise and back down again at the other end. I found IR training focused more on airways joins and exits, IFR RT and some sustained IMC flight but the preference always being to get on top above the weather. As an IMC pilot I needed no work on holds or procedures.
A good IMC pilot who practices regularily is just as capable of flying in sustained IMC, you develop and practice the skills and can either fly the guages or not.
Anyone who feels that they could not fly comfortably on the guages for a lenghty period of time should not be excercising the priveledges of an IMC.