I can’t add any additional advice to the above posts, this is just an account my flying “career”.
Got my PPL just for the fun of it 11 years ago in PA. After 9 years of VFR-only flight logging about 400 hrs, I decided to get my IR. It was a hard decision, as you can see. The biggest justification I had difficulty answering is the amount of work that’s required to maintain proficiency. I’d say IFR requires a pretty high level of proficiency to really be able to use it. You don’t want to get it with the attitude “just in case” because if you don’t maintain proficiency, you might as well not bother.
I finally decided to get it because, like in Long Island, the PA weather can be socked in to VFR pilots for days, even weeks. I was flying more often than before and, frankly, getting tired of not being able to fly on perfectly good IFR days.
The IR helped that, but as was said, it doesn’t solve it with trainers. You’ve got icing for more than half the year to worry about, then t-storms the other half. Then you have fog to worry about in the NE, which normally grounds most trainers.
So now, two years later, I logged about 5 hrs actual. That’s not a lot based on how much it costs. Am I proficient right now? No … current yes, but not proficient to the point I’d feel like flying an approach in actuals. Am I sorry I got it? No, you do learn a lot that isn’t just for IMC. In fact, I started to recommend to other pilots who aren’t IR to study and take the IFR written, even if you never plan to get an IR. The written is relatively cheap (enough material is free on the FAA website) and you do, indeed, learn a lot.