EASA is overstretched and underfunded, and wants the simplest and quickest possible solution to any problem consistent with what it believes (sometimes mistakenly) is safety.
That is true also, but the key lies in the word "sometimes". It is far more than "sometimes". I gather that, right now, they are still opposed to
two Garmin x30 GPSs installed in one plane. Well, they allow it, as a Major mod. So, what exactly do they do for the Major mod fee? Exactly zero, zilch, nowt, nothing. It is a pure charade, to earn the fee. You give them the paperwork and the fee and they say "now it is safe"
And this way of working goes right through about 90% of what EASA does.
So no wonder it is hard to find people who are willing to buy into the "cockup over conspiracy" theory.
(Actually, "conspiracy" is the wrong expression, as it implies a criminal conspiracy; it is just a blatent job protection / anti American policy. Whether you call this "malicious", is another matter. Personally I wouldn't; I don't think EASA is out to screw pilots or screw GA. They just run their gravy train, along with countless others in the EU machine, and they couldn't care less if they screw GA as a byproduct of their way of working).
A source close to EASA suggested to me that without the complications of the IMC rating rant and the enroute IR proposals, this would be done and dusted by now.
That's probably true, but that is like me crashing your plane, sh*gging your wife, and then asking you for a £100k loan which I need to buy food to survive, and then when I am on my deathbed, I blame you for my impending death as a result of refusing to lend me the money.
Nobody in their right mind was going to trust EASA to deliver an IMCR replacement which was similarly accessible i.e. doable in 15+ hrs, at your old PPL school, in any old plane, etc. when an FTO charges £130/hr just for supplying an instructor!
Sivel, at that presentation, said that Europe must have "standardisation" and this was not negotiable. So the IMCR was going to die no matter what. That is not a good basis for getting support for a replacement. Now, much later, EASA has said they cannot stop national licenses/ratings after all...
The "FCL-008 IR" is a great step forward and I really hope it comes to pass, but I can't blame anybody for refusing to take the IMCR v. "FCL-008 IR" trade at face value, when the latter is just a very early proposal.
There is a number of factors working against the new IR: the long European precedent for fundraising / FTO job protection, the long proven ability of European CAAs to invent new ways of raising money and jobs when EASA robs them of parts of their remit, the long term hate of the FAA IR (which resembles the new IR rather closely), etc. As I say, I hope we get it, but I would never chuck away the IMCR which has done so many pilots here so much good, on the promise of the new IR, from
anybody and especially now not from EASA whose chief was seen on TV saying that 10k+ pilots are liars and that 14 exams are "a little test".