Dead right, Beagle. Wide circuits are the curse of them all. Air rage has its beginnings with wide circuits I reckon!
The standard Boeing 737 circuit width is 1.5 miles wide. I have seen C150,s dual and solo, that wide. Keep ab initio circuits to half a mile at the most.That may mean turning downwind at 800 ft instead of climbing cross-wind to 1000ft. The fault lies primarily with the instructors concerned for not insisting on a standard circuit. It is also bad form to allow your student to do a wide circuit with its commensurate long final. It is not only wasting his hard earned dollars, but worse still costs the unfortunates trailing behind him their dollars too. Mind you, dare I say that some instructors make more money with wide dual circuits and log more hours in the long run. Why do you think that some instructors students take 20 hours to go solo, with 15 hours of that being on circuits?