If I now fly all my trial lessons and nav lessons in accordance with IFR. They will be all outside controlled airspace so no need to file a flight plan and in all reality will never be in IMC. I could then use all these hours to count towards the now magic figure of 200.
What about my night hours presumably the hours that I have already logged can count towards the 200 hours night requirement but now night is regarded as VFR the hours I'm logging at present can't?
Provided you have a current IR or IMC on you license, I believe you are indeed correct. You can log IFR for your (trial)lessons. If you book in/out IFR, then you can claim the time inside the zone too.
As far as night flight goes, VFR at night outside of controlled airspace didn't exist until recently, so that had to be IFR ... right? With an IR or IMC, I believe you now have the choice at night, either VFR or IFR outside the zone, or SVFR/IFR inside.