Thank you for the (mostly) constructive comments..
Reference instructor rating, well yes I have spoken to local schools. It's an option purely to gain hours, but it is in no way a mid or long term option for anyone who has paid to train to fATPL. The numbers do not stack up.
Reference TR. That is only half the battle, you generally need a decent number of hours to back it up with to become a strong consideration.
On the subject of hours. Two weeks ago I met a newly recruited FO working at one of the large UK lines. They had followed almost the same route of training as myself but the big difference was along the way their family had funded just shy of 500 hours of hour building!..and paid TR. Can't compete with that. The entire room was astonished when they offered this information out freely.. I still can't get my head around it.£££
Maybe I should go pay to do an MPL with a guaranteed job.