Yes, it is. Made all the difference in the world coming home yesterday. Without the IR we would have had to come down the Columbia River gorge and hope ceilings cooperated. With the IR I just filed, flew the plan and got home. No fuss, no muss, no bother. Now, my wife was a bit nervous (I don't blame her) about entering the clouds, but it worked like it was supposed to. She said the view from inside the clouds wasn't very interesting, but I missed it. I had my eyes glued to the panel.
What was really fun was going in and out of clouds while being vectored to the ILS. Got a chuckle when a plane on VFR flight following was told to watch for me and couldn't see me. I confirmed our altitude and that I was in the clouds. Funny, we didn't see him, either.