Review the existing JAR-FCL requirements for the Instrument Rating with a view to evaluate the possibility of reducing these requirements for private pilots flying under Instrument Flight Rules.
No one ignored that objective. As I understand it, FCL008 has agreed and proposed
1) a significantly reduced TK syllabus for the EASA IR, to reflect only the specific privileges granted by the IR
2) a Competency-based training process to exist in parallel with the Modular and Integrated routes. This would allow some training outside an ATO and some experience building to count towards the total needed to take the test.
This has the advantage that the actual TK Exams and the IR Flight Test are identical for all candidates, so no-one can say that private operators have "lower standards", but it does mean that the process of getting an IR may be more accessible for candidates for whom the current Modular course is too inflexible. There is precedent for such a Competence-based approach under the JAA, eg. converting an ICAO IR to a JAA one. Of course, Competency-based doesn't necessarily mean less training; for some candidates it may mean more than if they undertook a full-time Modular course; but at least the flexibility is there.
The Enroute IR is the proposal for an 'intermediate' step to allow someone to build experience, and to have some use as an enroute-only qualification.
No-one ever promised that FCL008 would "save the IMCr". That has been totally clear from the start and has been repeated on various fora for months. FCL008 set out to find a training process for the full IR acceptable across Europe and an intermediate qualification acceptable across Europe. The EIR may be. The IMCr isn't.
If there had been an objective to "save the IMCr" they would have written that in FCL008's ToR's, instead of "Review the requirements of the UK IMC rating and other national qualifications for flying in IMC and consider whether there is a need to develop an additional European rating to fly in IMC with less training but also with limited privileges"
So instead of sniping at FCL008, the "IMCr campaigners" and AOPA UK should have spent the last year doing what they claim their aim is, ie. "Saving the IMCr", by whatever mechanism they think can achieve that -and which FCL008 never was. I imagine people who feel strongly about the IMCr would love to know what progress has been made in the last year of "IMC campaigning".