Finally, any other tips or advice you might like to give?
I saved myself 4 figures and a load of hours by flying all the procedures on FS2000, with a cheap £10 joystick.
The bottom line is that if you don't know how to fly a procedure on a sim, don't bother trying to do it in a real plane. Instructors may not spell it out in quite that way but they have to make a living...
Regardless of the IMCR syllabus, you need to be able to fly any approach plate which somebody sticks under your nose, straight off. It's not hard. Most of what you need to know is written right there.
Sims have poor pitch control and you may have to use the throttle to trim it, to hold altitude, but that's OK because you are just practicing the procedures.
In real IFR, you study the plates before you depart, or if for some reason you couldn't then you do it (on autopilot) some 100nm before the destination.