it seems to me that you may have taken my comments about instructors
personally.

Hardly. Locally, I'm "high time" so you'd probably be flying with me.

I seek to learn more of the "IFR subtleties" we touched on in this
thread.

My original point is that you would not have learned them from
"experienced" instructors or pilots, any more than from a newbie. You
learned them here.

It has nothing to do with "feeling" safe when I fly with the
instructor. Instead, it has everything to do with getting what I pay
for, which is to learn from someone much more experienced than I.

While you're an instrument student, everybody is more experienced than
you are, even a time builder..

Again, my orignial point was that while learning, the time builder was
fine for you, as long as he was competent. A more knowledgable
teacher would have been wasted on you, until you learned the basics.