No doubt about it. Get the instrument rating.

Relax on the solo thing. I've had good students get themselves so worked up about getting their solo done by a predetermined time that they have set for themselves, that they keep screwing up and can't meet their own expectation... realistic or not. It is as if they said to themselves, "I need to solo by ten hours or I'm a failure." When they can't meet the expectation they get into a mental downward spiral whereby they convince themselves they are no good. Then the self-fulfilling prophecy kicks in.

I myself soloed at 4.3 hours. Scared the crap out of myself and quit flying for about three years. 3000 hours later I can say from experience that it was waaaaaaaaay too early.

From an instructor's standpoint... I like the way the Cessna part 141 syllabus has the student solo just before X-country work and then they are done. No solo until private pilot proficiency has been demonstrated. That's not to milk people, but to be assured that they are safe. The mindset of solo at five hours comes out of the old school seventies Cessna program. I think it puts pressure on students far to early in their training and puts instructors unfairly in the position of being stereotyped as milking their student. In the kindest sense possible, I've seen it more than a couple of times before where a student tries to pressure their instructor and then moves into blaming their instructor for not letting them solo. It is indicative of one of the five hazardous attitudes. Very few, less than 1 in 100, are truly ready to solo in ten or fifteen hours. Don't put yourself in that category because it is too much pressure.

The other side of the coin is that you can solo, then go blow tons of money making bad habits for yourself in the practice area flying around alone when you should have been paying the extra little bit to get it right the first time with an instructor on board. Then the instructor won't have to milk you because they will be doing all they can just to fix the mess they have got on their hands. That always takes extra time and money because they get to unteach while they teach. Newbie instructors aren't trained for that type of complication, getting it right the first time - without bad habits in the way - is complicated enough for them. An indication that the student/teacher relationship is going down this treacherous trail is when the instructor commits to soloing the student in X more hours... it is like a door opening.