This is slightly tongue in cheek, but I see this in others, plus I used to be the same.
One goes to hard airports, with hard ATC, slots everywhere, 3 digit landing fees. I’ve even known people fly to Gatwick EGKK just to get it into their logbook, although a) admittedly you don’t need an IR for that, and b) it would cost you around 2k today.
Then after maybe 10 years one loses the will to do that, and uses the IR to get easier flying – to circumvent the various weird ATC policies which make so much European VFR hard for no obvious reason.
Besides the obvious (landing and departing under IMC), I use my IR to save myself of analyzing airspace structure on planned route and to avoid possibility of busting different airspaces with special rules.
I took my IR because I wanted to get to the next level with my flying, have more safety margin if needed and did open up a new world of flying.
I use my IR for 1) ease of planning compared to VFR; and 2) higher dispatch rate / more options / ability to plan trips in advance. If I want to make sure a trip is as likely as possible (i.e. something other than a lunch run) I will plan around a “proper” field with IAPs. I will sometimes plan for somewhere with expensive fees, but not usually more than €100 or so.
I use my IR for 1) making in-flight interaction with ATC much simpler and 2) not having to worry about marginal VFR weather.
It turns out that most IFR flights I did could actually have been done VFR, but that is often not obvious from the forecasts and then you would worry about the weather both before and during the flight. It is unusual that I do “hard” IFR.
What I was getting at is that one’s flying profile changes over the years.
The private IR is very useful,
*For flying tricky enroute airspace in easy weather
*Flying into easy airports in tricky weather
Tricky airspace, tricky airports and tricky weather, especially with slots and 3 digits landings and 2h to get in/out no thanks…I never paid 3 digits, I may do in Greenland on my way to US. For trips in Europe, I prefer Avgas and fly to places where I am ‘number 1, what are your intentions?’ instead of racing British Airways with ‘number 5 on ILS, maintain 140kts’
Same for VFR flying, while ago, I was offered 40min Spitfire with voucher at 7am slot? versus 800Litres of Avgas and two weeks in C172?
Definitely in the early days of my flying I got a kick out of flying into large airports in the US and would often do so when I would take trips. But this wasn’t related to my IR. Later I became based at a large GA field (KPDK) with 4 runways (usually running parallel runway ops), high volume, and rapid-fire ATC comms. It was more hectic there than anything I’ve experienced since, and was a good experience for building situational awareness and RT skills in the airport environment. Today I’m based at EHRD, which has a large terminal, airline traffic, and big airport procedures. So I guess for me the size of the airport doesn’t matter so much as the practicalities. I won’t seek out or avoid a large airport as long as the fees and facilities are reasonable.
Peter wrote:
What I was getting at is that one’s flying profile changes over the years.
What ? Thread drift ? On EuroGA ? Unheard of 
It probably depends on what plane you’re using (short/soft runways) and how much dispatch rate you want. The big airports with instrument approaches are very useful.
Peter wrote:
This is slightly tongue in cheek, but I see this in others, plus I used to be the same.
Yes I do, for the moment. On the way to my IR I enjoy approaching “double D” airports in Germany (all “double-Ds” here are the big international ones, like EDDF, EDDM, EDDN and so on). However as these are training flights landing fees are really fair. Just as examples, EDDE Erfurt is 8 Euro something. Nuremberg EDDN around 10 Euros, only if you go into the terminal it’s 30 Euros handling fees on top. Next on my list is EDDV and thereafter maybe EDDK.
I don’t have any plans to do that later the same way, when I’ve got the IR, but for now it’s cool 
It’s even somewhat intentional from the side of my instructor who encourages to select the bigger ones because few pilots actively select big airports without any own experience. And it’s good to get to know all the options one has. With the limited weather capabilities of small GA one should be more flexible regarding deviations from the destination, and to know the options. So I’ve been to big airports all over Germany, I know that most of them don’t “bite” in case weather asks for an alternate. Some are even most favorable because they’ve got the big train station close by so that you can return home quickly and go for the plane a week later, if so necessary. I regard this as yet another arrow in the quiver.
