I did mine in California (with the founder of Angel City Flyers - who are now a Diamond Factory Training Centre (er) ) in a 172SP. I was short of cross country time then (autumn 2001) with only about 150 hrs under my belt, so each flight was a cross country of some description (>50nm). My mate did it too, so we used to back seat each other and ended up touring California and seeing some amazing places. Took about 43 hours and 4 weeks - all was done in the aeroplane (steam driven) none in the sim. It was hard work and I remember at the time being sick to death of flying.
I then did my ME in the Seneca II and added the IR by shooting two approaches, the VOR DME into Catalina asymetric, and ILS into Long Beach I think....and later added the ME and SE CPL.
My mate used PAT and was quite happy with them. Another mate has just converted with some small outfit at Bournemouth (name escapes me) and he was very impressed by them.