I am not in any way critising the pilots who hold the rating, teach the rating or exammine the rating. What everyone in Europe outside the UK PPL group see is a standard that is set far too low and a rating that relies more on people being sensible and self training post rating issue than a realistic standard of knowledge and skill that befits a pilot entering IMC IFR flight and who (Mystic Meg aside) can not tell when they will exit if at all before making an approach to land.
All this "I don't want to be a commercial pilot I don't need an IR" is UK establishment propoganda and those that believe it are bigger fools than those that spread the stuff in the first place.
The Instrument Rating is the rating that according to ICAO entitles you to fly IMC IFR. That is it. Please refer to the ICAO learning objectives before complaining about the JAR learning objectives.
The biggest part of the aviation world says - you want to fly IFR then you need an IR........even the FAA have this simple ICAO compliant requirement.
Again I say - All this "I don't want to be a commercial pilot I don't need an IR" is utter tosh. The standard that CPL pilots are tested to in order to gain the IR is the PPL level of instrument flying.
Regards,
DFC