I have around the same total hours as a couple of posts here and about 1000 hours IF. My first 6000 or so were without auto pilots or if I had them I didn't trust them in IF so hand flew. 500 at night was also with no auto pilot mostly in remote areas and not just for the last 30 mins onto an ILS. I don't lie about that sort of stuff because I don't really give a stuff. To my mind you either fly to the standard or not and as we all know, hours are not always a good indication of skills in a particular area.
Dry season flying or Wet, one of the areas where IF skills are put to the test in RFDS type of work is when arriving at a flare lit strip in the middle of the "bindoo" at night and supposedly visual. Yes it is visual but all is black and a most likely case is that the flares are partly blown out or spread to far apart or quite crooked or all of the above. They are also not necessarily very bright, even in all that black. Any outside reference or to much "eyeball off the gauges" will have you unstuck quite quick. The circuit has to be flown accurately as the strip is probably only in the area of 1000 metres long. The way I've done it and others I've spoken to, is to accurately flying the gauges but being able to transition quickly and efficiently from one to the other as necessary, always one eye on the instruments though. I hand fly the aircraft for the last 15 miles or so just to get "the feel of things" approaching the circuit as you have most likely been sitting at flight levels for a while. All this means, to my mind, is that you need fairly well established IF skills and procedures that will normally only come with a reasonable amount of IF time under your belt. It is not something you are required to do on every second night either.
However it does occur to me when required to put down those IF hours on paper that they may seem a little high to someone reading them. The proof is in the pudding though I suppose when the check ride comes up as has been mentioned. If you don't have a bad day when you do it.