The original poster said that he wanted to be able to get places on a
schedule. What that requires depends on where you are and where you are
going, but to me it requires radar, known ice, high altitude capability
and
range.

I think there are two issues he suitability for single-pilot use and
capability to tackle weather. The two sorta work against one another -
probably the easiest to fly plane IFR is something like an 182, but you're
not going to be tackling much weather. Conversely, a plane like Mike's MU-2
is very capable, but you've got to ante up to very high proficiency
standards. (Mike, are your insurers Ok with you flying alone in clouds?
I've heard they're starting to get very sticky about turbines twins being
flown single-pilot.)

In reality, we don't choose planes that are good for single-pilot IFR - we
choose planes that suit our mission (and constraints, particularly costs)
and then ante up what it takes to fly them safely IFR. For me, a
non-professional IFR pilot who gets maybe 5 hours a year actual in my
non-iced heavy single, this means scrubbing a lot of flights.

I think that is the big fallacy with new instrument pilots - that they can
truly fly in any weather and can meet hard schedule committments. It takes
a lot of airplane and a lot of training/experience to be able to
consistently tackle IFR weather with reasonable risk. I'd guess that on any
given mission, I can make it VFR 80% of the time. IFR cuts my scrubs in
half so I can go 890% of the time, but I still have a 10% scrub rate even
with the the ticket. Ice is the big issue for me.

In reality, I use IFR more for flying security and convenience rather that
tackling weather. It's just a lot easier to file IFR and follow ATC's
instructions rather than keeping track of everything yourself, especially
with all the airspace restrictions these days.

- Mark