As I said above Peter I am coming to the end of a year long journey on mine and nothing has changed during that time. The number of subjects is 10 but the number of exams is only 7. The problem of course with more theory being crammed into fewer exam questions is you have a greater likelyhood of getting it wrong due to the vast amount of useless information you have to learn!
But yes the JAR IR is a huge undertaking compared to the FAA. But at the end of the day if you want to fly European aircraft at this time you have no choice. The driver for me was that I have a superbly equipped G reg aircraft that I did not want to put on the N reg. I also fly an IFR equipped twin and my co operators have no desire to go N reg so the onus is on me to become compliant.
At least the FAA training gives great preperation!