Yes, US is a big country, so it might be. Here in Czechia it’s exactly the same as EASA publishes. Not sure about other european countries, but as I flew through many of them (IRL), the rule was very similar, if not the same as well.
There are some europeran countries with some exceptions (like Autria, Italy, …) because of high mountains areas and so. There are always some exceptions because of good reasons. But in general there is a tendency to “harmonise” the rules…
It’s a great strategy to focus for now on the part of the game that is more developed, it makes “waiting” easier, but - consider your expectations on what are you exactly waiting for?
Asobo will correct eventually everything that is formally/internally understood to be a bug; but there are many things that will remain as they are and will require AAA-quality third-party addon (like PMDG we all love) to really fulfill the fully-detailed IFR a lot of people are used to. And that will take a long while.
I have been focusing on the Neo and I would argue the most grievous bugs from launch (and some from previous patches) have already been fixed.
About the sim quirks and limitations I have learned to expect/work around most if not all of them, I know because I am already participating in VATSIM events even with Virtual Airlines, mostly painless. The FlyByWire community add-on helped greatly.
Wow thanks for sharing Windy! - I am also a longtime simmer and I am amazed that by reading this forums always somebody posts something that I had never seen.