"SP IFR is not all that difficult"
The only folk who might make (such a silly) statement are folk who have never flown SP IFR. My admiration for the day-in-day-out GA SP guys skyrocketed as a result of the exercise.
I see we're miscommunicating a little here. I'm the one saying "SP IFR is not all that difficult" but not in the way you're reading it. I'm not saying it is easier than multi-crew or that it's not worthy of respect, just that it is different, and not necessarily as difficult as some make it out to be. Of course it will be difficult if you haven't done it before but you learn the techniques necessary to make it easier and when you do it day-in-day-out it doesn't seem all that difficult anymore.
I think I use a skewed definition of "difficult" which doesn't help. I've been asked if a Pitts Special is difficult to land and I'd say "no, it's easy because it'll do just what you tell it to, but you have to tell it to do the right things." This probably overlooks the fact that telling it to do the right things is the hard bit. And when I say SP IFR is "not all that difficult" I'm probably overlooking that it only becomes easier when you are well prepared and well organised, and in many ways that is the difficult bit.
Anyway, sorry for continuing the hijack.
Back on topic, I can't quote our OM but we're expected to use automation to its fullest extant so that we can better manage the situation we're in. We are also expected to be able to hand-fly on raw data when necessary and you can't do that without practice. Luckily for us we have plenty of opportunity to practice hand-flying when we're on task and we don't have any pesky passengers to worry about, so we generally keep the flying skills up to a reasonable standard. Also our silly autopilot is not certified to fly an approach on one engine so all the interesting stuff in the simulator gets hand-flown.