I also consider it absurd that the CAA put the cart before the horse issuing non instrument trained PPLs with night ratings where they are not trained to deal with potential situations they can so easely and inadvertantly encounter.
I was about to counter that as I don't remember ever being worried when I first got my PPL night rating, however, I've just looked at my logbook and see I did the IMCR first and had 200 hours (with 30 hours real IMC logged) before I did the night rating, so agree, the instrument skills are probably essential at night!