My requirements may be a bit lower than maxred's, and I really don't want an IR and wouldn't use it enough to be current.
I don't know if I'm a typical IMCR flyer, but I'll bet I'm not alone. I rarely fly because I have to get from A to B - I fly for fun. And flying any distance in low vis at tree-top height isn't. Fun, that is. There are many days in the UK when a flight can be completed above the clag (or even in it), but a VFR flight would be unpleasant and possibly dangerous. An en-route IFR rating wouldn't help. Very often such days have cloudbase down to 1000 feet, sometimes below, which may well be below MSA. (And if the cloudbase were well above MSA, then I wouldn't need the IMCR anyway - I could fly VFR below - so why on earth would I want an en-route IFR rating?)
It's often said that IMCR pilots are not current enough to fly approaches to anything like normal minima - I may be one of those pilots. So I don't fly with TAFs predicting cloudbase below 1000 feet. In the event I get down to MSA and I still can't see, I feel competent enough to fly an approach down to 800-1000 feet AAL. That's exactly what the IMCR allows me to do, and safely I reckon.
IMCR can be much more than a "get you home" rating; it allows you to fly safely on many UK days where VFR flying would be risky. But it's not "IFR-Lite". And it certainly isn't en-route IFR; I think that's pretty much irrelevant to UK flying.