The rule is problematic pretty much only in the UK, outside the UK it is pretty much IFR = IFR flight plan and ATC service, either required by law (e.g., Germany) or in practice (little point doing Class G uncontrolled IFR, there is no IMC rating and radio contact is mandatory, so you might as well...)
I simply stay within the spirit of the rule, as the letter of the rule is not helpful. That means
- Any flight under a Eurocontrol IFR flight plan --> IFR, regardless of met conditions. And I don't mean filing IFR for OCAS hops in VMC!
- Any flight outside controlled airspace conducted with large portions in IMC and/or weather so poor that it requires an IR --> IFR. I haven't got many of those as, being Biggin based, it tends to be better to file and fly in class A.
- Other than that, I log only actual IMC time as IFR, for example OCAS when popping through a thin layer or a cloud, and in practice I don't log that unless it is significant time. 200 hours 5 minutes at a time? not really.
- Any instrument training I receive under the hood I log as above; basically if it is an IFR sortie with departure, en-route and approach this is an IFR flight, if it is 5 minutes under the hood as part of a, say, training flight for the purpose of revalidation, only the 5 minutes if I can be bothered...
- an in particular, I do NOT log as IFR if I am teachinghave a student under the hood unless I am flying in cloud. Not sure what I would do if I had IR instructor privileges, but at that point it becomes less important...
I am sure that the above would pass muster with the authorities, and even with Bose on a day he feels especially strict... ;-)