Definitely do the IMC. As others say, it will improve your flying skills and also give you more confidence in your abilities. And practice it. Do practice ILS/VOR/SRA approaches on your way home in VMC, and as others also suggest, crosscheck between VORs/GPSs/DMEs as that too will improve your understanding and SA (situational awareness).
Personally, I am concerned about the removal of so many VORs. So many people are saying just use the GPS. OK, how many of these are legal GPS fits? I'm a traditionalist, with a chart, and for legality I can use VORs but I also have a Lowrance Airmap2000 with dash mounted aerial (not IFR approved fit), and a yoke-mounted iPad2 with its own built in GPS (&using Skydemon).This setup gives excellent SA and (if I so choose) the challenge of practising multiple inputs.
The big question. How reliable is the GPS? All things being equal, the Airmap to be honest is about 95% reliable, drops out quite a lot when heading north, and also when some 'harmonic' frequencies are selected on the COM1. The iPad2 however is about 99.9% reliable. Dropped out once on a 40hr 3500nm round Europe trip (near a military base).
But.... And it is a big but ....
How often do military exercises from Spadeadam and all points north employ jamming? How often do you see NOTAMs telling you that GPS info may suffer interference due to jamming or military exercises? Frequently. Will this jamming be stopped to cater for the loss of VOR/IFR navaids? (Rhetorical question)
I am seriously thinking about getting an approved GPS fit, but even the simplest options are not cheap. (If anyone has any recent experience or suggestions then I am all ears). It would appear that these options are along the Garmin430/530 - KingKLN94 - or GarminGTN650/750.
The first is effectively 12-15yr old technology and would probably come in at around £10k fully fitted. The second I know not. And the third, would appear to be around £10-12k just for the kit, never mind the fitting and approval paperwork!!
Any ideas?