I am not sold on some of the virtues of the pilots and in this case I am stunned the guy was IR rated.
Pace I think the problem is being IR rated and IR current are worlds apart, for you and guys like MJ who fly week in week out and maybe do 100's of approaches each year it is easier for you to stay current and gain a big bag of experience and better skills.
For me and most others on this Private Flying section who are basic PPL's it is much tougher, I fly around 120 - 150 hours a year. Most of my approaches in IMC are due to a desire to practice and to try and stay current and improve my skills, I would say I only do 2 or 3 a year in actual IMC for the actual purposes of travel and my minimums are conservative from a planning point of view.
So I can easily see how this guy and plenty of others ended up in trouble, no idea how current or well trained or otherwise he was but this could happen (and does) to plenty of PPL's