John,
I too am in the market for an IFR bird and have decided to go the 172 route. I did part of my training for my instrument ticket in a 152. I would not really rate it that much less stable than a 172 for instrument work - neither of them is really much fun to hand fly precisely in turbulent conditions. I don't know where you are in NC but one thing to definitely be picky about is the radios. I fly near/in the CLT class B area and I can tell you it is absolutely no fun tooling around with radios or a transponder that are broken, intermittent, have knobs you have to jiggle, bad displays, etc., and it will not make you popular with ATC, either (hey guys, remember your renting days?) If you plan on doing a lot of single pilot IFR, I would definitely look for a plane with two comm radios, both with flip-flops. Also, an ADF is a virtual necessity in some places because it is used for the IAF for a ton of approaches. Get a set of NC/SC approach plates and look them over hard before you settle on a radio stack.
