I have found concern when people belittle the IMC rating.
It is true that in the past the standard to which it has been taught has been variable. However it is equally true that there are many IMC holders that fly to every bit as a high or higher standard than IR holders.
In reality there are very few GA pilots that want to operate into and out of airports used by commercial traffic - if for no other reason than the cost. When it comes to en route flying very very few have the capability to operate in anything other than the very base of the airways. In consequence there is very little interaction between CAT and GA, and no evidence that the IMC rating is more generally unsafe. As it is it gives access to class D and, in my experience at least, I see just as many private IR holders struggling in class D as IMCr holders, and fortunately not many of either rating.
In many ways it is an IR without the overhead of irrelevant exams and a bloated training regime, moreover, proof, if any were required, that most of the theoretical training involved with an IR is an exercise in funding the training industry and little else. I know, I hear you say proof, if any more proof were required that a FAA IR fits the bill for private pilots.
Whatever will happen will happen. In a theoretical world I would add another 10 hours to the practical component of the IMCr, leave the current restrictions in place on runway visibility, and restrict the privileges such that they could only be exercised in aircraft falling below en route charges. I would then call the rating an EIR.
I think you would find that approach would save many more lives that outlawing the IMCr and replacing it with the EIR or IR, neither of which will enjoy any greater up take than has historically proved to be the case.
At the moment we seem to be planning to increase deaths, not reduce them.