There is a body of people in GA who feel they are the elite and everybody else is an idiot. Some of these may be involved peripherally in the CAA but I doubt it.
It is understandable that if somebody has just sat 14 ATPL exams, taking 6 months off work in the process and perhaps working as a flying instructor for a few years on a retainer of £10/day, they might think the IMCR is a mickey mouse rating. They are wrong, but they ARE going to think that.
I once walked up to a CAA man at one of their safety presentations and suggested to him that he should give some credence to IFR flight generally (practically the whole seminar was aimed at stopping plain PPLs flying into hills in poor vis, and such). Somebody in the audience jumped up and said "you can fly EVERYWHERE VFR" and that was the end of it. There is ZERO interest in IFR at that level.
This isn't an argument we can win. Best to just enjoy flying. Probably less than 1% of active pilots have the time to read anything here, anyway
