Broomstick, I think you are being a bit melodramatic there!!
I took the CPL/IR exams over a 12 month period and passed the lot first time and I have a brain the size of a pea! None of it is difficult just very time consuming. I also used the JAR question bank "Exam 8.0" from Germany (was in German but now available in English as V10.0) which has all the questions in it for revision.
If you have no desire to fly a chav liner or even work as a pilot the CPL takes up far less of your life than the ATPL exams. I have no intention of doing a CPL licence, I just did them while I was doing the IR stuff to see if I could do it.
So if you do not want to work for an airline ever then the CPL exams are easier and less time consuming.