To come at this from a different angle...
As a PPL instructor who aspires to complete the IRI course in the future, and currently lacks the IFR time, how would I be best spending my time?
I do little flying other than instructing at the moment, and I am not inclined to log any of this time as IFR. I am also concious that 200hrs of IFR time in VMC is not going to make me the best IR instructor.
I am looking to make the most practical use of the few hours I log outside of my current instructing. Am I correct in saying that in the past it was possible to complete the IRI course if you had an FI and an IR?