Correct me if I am wrong but flying in the clouds, with the help of instruments, started as a neccessity for commercial (mail, passengers cargo, etc) and military operations. 1929, Doolittle did the first ''blind approach''. From this time, instruments and airplanes improved. My guess is that IFR operation was mostly done by professionnals and private pilots slowly started to get their IFR rating. The IFR rating is a big step from flying VFR and after earning your rating you need to continue to practice and to be sharp....like a professionnal but in general, a private pilot is not a professionnal pilot. Some private pilot with put the energy, and the money, to get their rating but after some time some of them will stop flying IFR because they don't use it, practice it, anough. On the flight test, and at recurrency, we need to execute approaches at 200 ft AGL, do holds (offset, parrallel, direct, standard and not standard), etc, etc. I don't think that most of us need to do an approach at 200 ft. 1000 ft ceiling is good anough for me. If we could have a lighter version for the IFR rating, a private IFR, then I think more pilots would continue to fly IFR and more pilots would take the rating. A private IFR rating would help increase SAFETY and UTILITY of GA airplanes. I know, and I knew, pilots who prefer to hit the ground instead of the clouds. Today, we have GPS, autopilot, weather and traffic in the cockpit which help us a lot. Why learn ADF, VOR, LOC, GPS approaches? Maybe the GPS and another type of your choice will suffice. Why hold inbound on the 235 degrees radial non standard when holding southwest of XX VOR would do the job....