Echobeach
You are absolutely right, and there are many pilots who like you use the IMCR seriously. I was doing ~ 150hrs/year when I had just the PPL and IMCR.
One problem is that there is always somebody who thinks such and such privilege is not adequately gold plated, and this is demonstrated here by the troll "zorst".
The other problem is that a lot of people cannot get it into their heads that ultimately it is up to the pilot to realise what he can and cannot do. There is no legislation (nor IMHO should there be, although curiously a lot of regs could be made far better if there was) saying that to fly in IMC one needs a £200k IFR spaceship, but obviously if you do have a £200k IFR spaceship then all of IFR becomes a relative piece of cake. But if somebody tried serious IFR in a 1970 C150 with its single VOR receiver about to fall out of the panel, the pilot workload would be, shall we say, rather high. Not everything can be regulated and some people cannot accept that.
For a change (for a regulator), EASA is taking a sensible view on this stuff.