Things are getting awfully "black and white", and inappropriately so in my view.
I'm a defender of the IMCR, and will be exceeding miffed if it disappears with no replacement. However, if EASA came out with a "halfway house" IR that was very like the IMCR (but different) - I wouldn't be yelling "NO WAY". I'd be wanting to know more about the details.
The EIR as defined - with no IAPs - doesn't cut it, I think we agree. Not even as a "stepping stone to the real IR". I think that message has been communicated. I hope it's been understood.
Anyone who can pass the IMCR written can, with a bit of application, pass the FAA IR written. Take that as the "benchmark". EASA say they will simplify the IR written: I'd like to know more about what that means before I reject it out of hand. If it's just "tinkering at the edges", they know what the reaction will be. If it's something very like the FAA IR (ie totally relevant), the reaction should be positive.
I remember when I did my FAA IR asking the instructor "is this the same IR that the ATPL flying a 747 has?" His answer was "Question is irrelevant." He explained that it's the same IR "on paper", but that the ATPL checkride tests IFR capability all over again, and the test standards are higher. If you have an FAA ATPL, he said, effectively you don't "need" an IR because the IR is included - and to those higher standards.
From memory, the checkride standard was for example "maximum of half scale on the localiser/glideslope" for the IR, and "quarter scale" for the ATPL. Those may be wrong, but that was the principle.
I took and passed the FAA IR after self-study and the "recent training hours with an FAA CFII". The other hours required by the FAA were obtained from the IMCR course I did all those years ago, and the hours I'd built up flying around the UK using the IMCR. It was a logical, challenging but achievable process.
Had I had a CAA IR, the requirements to get an FAA one would have been minimal. Sadly, the UK CAA regards (or regarded, I dunno) the FAA IR as being sub-ICAO in some way and won't return the compliment to the FAA. They required me to do the whole academic bit, more training, and then the full flight test. Fair enough on the flight test, maybe on the training, but rhubarb on the study. So I didn't do a CAA or a JAA IR.
My hope is that EASA will recognise and deal sensibly with the safety need for an achievable IFR qualification for PPLs and other non-ATPL types (as the FAA did) and disregard the vested interests that want to preserve the present jumbo mumbo-jumbo. I don't think many on here disagree with that. Or I hope that's so.