The IMC is a fantastic rating. You can wait a long time for VMC in this country – restricting yourself to VFR-only basically means you don’t fly very often (and it doesn’t seem to be any better in summer these days). This is not just annoying but pretty inconvenient if you’ve planned a trip and booked a hotel, car hire etc. With the IMC the only things that stop me flying now are:-
1. Vis < 1800m;
2. Cloudbase at destination below min. for approach;
3. Cloudbase too low for terrain plus freezing level too low (I don’t have de-ice);
4. Embedded CB (no WX radar);
5. Gale-force wind.
Not that we’re immune from this stuff, but at least it’s a bit rarer. BTW there have been quite a few threads on this recently – a search will provide lots of info/opinions.