I just got my instrument in Oct of 2001.
If I could have done the rating without NDB approaches I would have saved a month and tons of money. The approaches were painful to begin because you have to do a little more thinking. However, with a little practice with MS FltSim, and advice from a couple of airline pilots, I mastered the approach. I was feeling great until the next stage of my rating which involved doing all the approaches PARTIAL PANEL.
After a week of blood, sweat and tears of trying to perform the NDB approach partial panel, I found out from the examiner that a partial panel NDB will not be on the exam, maybe just a regular NDB approach.
I learned the TDI/DHI method. Tail Desired Intercept and Desired Head Intercept. PM me or email me when you get to NDB approaches. I am too tired to explain TDI/DHI right now. =) They teach this method at Embry Riddle too I believe so if you can find an ERAU grad, ask'em.
Two pieces of advice:
1) Use a flight sim program at home to do them over and over and over. PAUSE the game and think. You'll get faster each time.
2) Don't be afraid to ask for 'delay vectors' to get absolutely 100% ready to do the approach. The most demanding NDB approach I ever did was into Long Beach. The reason was because of time and I'd mess it up each time b/c I was way behind the aircraft. I would take off from John Wayne Airport (SNA) and get the NDB approach into LGB. The entire flight wasn't more than 10 minutes so basically I took off, switched radios to departures, asked to go off frequency to get the LGB ATIS, came back, immediately got my turn to intercept, which came in after just a minute or so, etc. My chief pilot said, 'ask for delay vectors' and I did and she was 100% correct. It fixed my approaches because I could concentrate on the approach w/o having to brief the approach, do BCGUMPLES.
Anyhow, I think you'll enjoy your IFR rating after you've finished. Lastly, don't quit no matter what. There is a ton of knowledge involved, learn it well so you don't get yourself killed.