Originally Posted by
USMCFLYR
It all depends on what type of skill set you are comparing.
A lot of instrument time will not prepare you well for aggressively maneuvering an aircraft for example just as that recreational VFR flying you mention above would not be very useful for sharpening instrument skills.
I think this is only part of the picture. I think I was the normal amount of ***holes and elbows through my private and instrument training. Got my commercial and flew skydivers, traffic watch, and CFI'd until about 1000 hours when I got hired at a 135 op. In getting ready for that I got an IPC and it was infinitely easier than when I was working on my instrument rating even though it had been about two years since I last shot a real approach. I attribute that to time spent getting really comfortable flying airplanes. I also made PIC decisions, overly conservative weather no-go's, overly cavalier weather go's, and came out of that with more comfort on the radio, in congested airspace, etc.
I really don't get the argument that flying VFR for a year is a waste of time because good instrument flying is much, much more than centering needles on an ILS. If you want a gear jockey who has never made a PIC decision good or bad who has been trained to watch an autopilot fly an airplane then sure, 250 hours should do it. Hell, why 250? Might as well be 100!