You may be laughing at my "proficient instructor" comment, but there are
a lot of instructors out there who are not proficient at real IFR

100% correct. At the FBO I teach at I would argue that I'm the ONLY CFI
who feels safe going into the clouds for anything more than a little
whisp. I usually get a fair amount of actual each year. However, I
don't do instrument training (too busy)

-Robert, CFI