Being IFR does not remove your responsibility as PIC to avoid traffic. See AIM 5-5-8.
See and Avoid
a. Pilot. When meteorological conditions permit,
regardless of type of flight plan or whether or not
under control of a radar facility, the pilot is
responsible to see and avoid other traffic, terrain, or
obstacles.
But yes I was joking, I even wrote it ;-)
So, it was was not a joke, highflyer (I sensed that…). You should really brush up on IFR and VFR see and avoid rules, airspace classes and separation rules.
You confirm the widespread prejudice of VFR pilots over IFR pilots who say that “IFR pilots don’t look out because they often don’t even know their look out obligations whilst in IMC”…
I think this is a very good introduction on the issue. I would like to show it to several of the mechanics I have met, maybe at half speed, pausing every few minutes to put it some test questions …
Once a was flying a training flight in a fixed-prop PA-28 with minimal engine instrumentation with a fairly experienced pilot. I watched him lean and made a remark that the carburetted engine ran unusually well lean-of-peak. He looked at me in shock as if I had accused him of a criminal offense. He was also confused because to him the concept simply did not apply unless the aircraft had an injected engine and comprehensive instrumentation. I noted that he had leaned so much that the RPM had decreased considerably, I think about 75 RPM below “peak RPM”, and that would certainly correspond to a lean-of-peak mixture, since the power reduction from max power to peak EGT is not a lot. So, I think that fleet hours lean-of-peak are more than we think, because many of the common carb’ed singles are leaned by feel, just “leaning until rough and then enriching a little”.
P.S. An SR22 has about 17% fewer seats than the Bonanza in the same conditions and at the same fuel flows. 
You can download John Deakin’s articles about engine management as a single PDF here: Engine Management
Is the Bonanza an A36?
yes
Yes, a pre-1984 model A36. Confirmed 1978.
Once you are LOP, the MPG is pretty directly related to the cockpit volume. So I would expect the SR22 to go a bit faster.
The four-seat Bonanza was first sold in 1947. Not that much progress in airframes I think.
