"If you are going professional, the IMCR is irrelevent"
Not 100% true. You could be going for the bizjet pilot market - legitimate as it is probably a more interesting job than driving airbuses. You do your own flight planning, get a huge variety of destinations, meet some interesting (and wealthy) people.
Many or most bizjets are N-reg, and IMCR training counts towards the FAA instrument time. You would be doing an FAA ATPL.