>Don't neglect your hand-flying in IMC, however. The more you >do of it, the easier it becomes, and you might find you don't >even feel yourself needing the assistance of an autopilot.
This was the point of the question really. By using the autopilot in IMC you can't help but neglect your hand-flying! I did a fairly long trip a few weeks ago with an instructor - the whole 4 hours was flown by hand in fact with a fair amount of it in IMC. It was great for the confidence but fairly tiring. Had I used the autopilot though it would have been a much easier flight, but I'd have lost the opportunity to get some IMC hand-flying experience. Now, had I been alone or just with non-pilot passengers it would have probably been better all round had I just stuck the autopilot on (I've used it a lot in VMC and have a good idea how it will react - I prefer for example to fly it on track either by hand or just using the heading mode before engaging a NAV mode since you know it isn't going to be making turns when it feels like it. I also scan just as much with it on - not a lot else to do really!)
I guess the crux of the question is - should one use the autopilot generally and polish up on hand-flying skills from time to time in case of an autopilot problem? Or should one hand-fly in general and be ready to switch on the autopilot if a problem arises? I'm just starting to persuade myself from the latter to the former and start using it more often!