I would also welcome any helpful suggestions on how people build their IFR time. As a PPL instructor I am clocking up plenty of hours VFR but get little time (or money) to do much flying for myself. I am trying to fly every couple of weeks with a safety pilot under the hood, but its going to be a very long road to 200hrs...
I'm aware of FIs at at least two established ATOs not a million miles away from where I am who seemed to quite legitimately log a large percentage of their student's PPL training exercises as flight time under IFR by flying (amongst other things) according to the Quadrantal Rules. Assuming this is allowed, it seems to me to be a significant bending of the rules at the very least and dilutes the valuable experience that the FI would otherwise have acquired by flying procedures and approaches under genuine IFR time which would be passed on to the benefit of their students as an IRI.
HW