Originally Posted by
IO540
One thing which needs to be appreciated is that to fly around Europe in controlled airspace under IFR, one needs more than an "IR". ....
IO,
I think you are painting an overly complex picture of IFR in Europe. Certainly over the Alps and Pyrenees you need to be able to reach O2 levels to be safe. However, there is a reasonable amount of 'Near Europe' that is nearly as benign as the UK from a terrain perspective. Some of those countries have a similarly relaxed attitude towards DCT routings as the UK - and even better, have not designed their airways around turbine routes! In these countries any reasonable aircraft can be an IFR platform.
The UK is unique in its approach to IFR (in that about the only rule in IFR is 1000 ft above the ground, if you can't see it, unless you are trying to land (there are others but they either exist implicitly in the V rules or are recommended but not obligatory for Visual flight), as such it does help create this view of pilots than 'I am VFR but am in IMC' and that IFR is what people do up high on Eurocontrol routes.
It is actually quite enjoyable to be able to duck through clouds without the overhead of an ATC clearance/routing, but it is a concept totally out of synch with the rest of the world.