Not stricly on the subject: I do wonder if some of the people pushing the "IR or nothing" agenda already hold IRs and are being slightly elitist. Perhaps it would help to make more informed views on posts if people declared what rating they held.
Oh, it is strictly on the subject, OpenCirrus619.
The vast majority of contributors to these debates who already hold IRs (of whom I am one) have strongly supported a reduction in the training requirement for the IR from 55 hours to 25 hours and a halving of the theoretical knowledge requirements, so that many more pilots can get the safety and operational benefits of IFR flight without having to go through the hell that we went through to get ours. If that is "elitist" then I'm proud to be elitist.
However, since the name of this rating is "Instrument Rating" rather than "IMC rating", it seems that an inverted-elitism means that current IMC rating holders react against the very label "IR" and claim that they "don't want it" and "don't need it", despite never having properly understood the benefits it offers, not just to them but potentially many thousands of other pilots around Europe.