If the TopDog were to take the controls at the time of entering IMC, that
would be a different operation (the entire purpose of this operation is to
give the HOT some instrument time)


Yanno, I've always wondered about that interpretation. Seems to be reasonable
to say that two pilots are required when "the purpose of the flight" is to give
one pilot simulated instrument time. There's only one way to do it, and that
is with a safety pilot. Thus, a two pilot operation.

But is it really still a two-pilot operation when "the entire purpose" is to
give a non-instrument rated pilot actual time? There's also only one way to do
it, but you can certainly go in the clouds single pilot.

Somewhere I remember a case where two pilots could be up front, each legal to
do their thing, but none able to be Top Dog. So if a third pilot sits in the
back and acts as Top Dog, the flight would be legal. Is this now a three-pilot
op?

And (to be a bit silly), suppose the whole purpose of the flight is to try out
a new autopilot. Right seat pilot (say, the owner of the plane) is Top Dog,
and the left seat pilot is trying the instrumentation. The right seat pilot
takes off, then hands the controls to the left seat pilot, who logs HOT while
he's sole manipulator. But all he does is turn on the autopilot and watch for
two hours. He gets to log two hours of HOT while he's sitting on his hands.
But if it were the right seat pilot who turned on the autopilot and then turned
the controls over to the left seat pilot, and then nobody touches the controls
for two hours while the autopilot does its thing, who gets to log HOT?

Jose

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