As for 250 by 5, that's almost laughable - but highly fuel and aircraft INefficient.
Kap,
Yes the days of 300 at 20 to run (Or, if ATC wanted you there fast, 320 in the 737 or 340 in the 767) were great fun, men were men, sheep were nervous etc. etc.
HOWEVER the advent of QARs has re-focussed flight saftey on the critical phases of flight. One thing that was found (and has been mentioned earlier) is that early analysis of this data found a totally unacceptable number of high energy approaches nearer to the runway. Without getting into a slanging match I'd even admit that I've been in the flight deck, in one seat or another during approaches that these days would have had the LBB (Little Black Box) producing red text when downloaded.
Faced with the idea that if they are unstable at the companys minimun height it WILL be detected, pilots are under much more onus to go-around. YES they always should have, but faced with a long runway and experience telling them it will be OK, no doubt a lot of approaches used to be salvaged that these days would be thrown away.
Therefore, apart from the obvious primary objective of minimising unstable approaches and improving flight saftey, slowing down a bit also reduces go-arounds. One go-around would, I dare say, use all the fuel/money/inconvienience saved by several hundred higher speed approaches.
You might be interested that easyJet, my current outfit, has a very conservative approach and is highly regarded for its' flight ops. We have a cast iron rule that it's 250 below 10 000' EVEN IF we get a "No Speed restriction" from ATC. Clean speed by 5000' and flaps five by 3000'. If not stable by 500', GO AROUND or get a pleasant phone call from a nice chap in our flight ops!!!
Honestly, it just sounds like OZ has caught up with the rest of the world WRT approach speeds, and the days of "Drilling it in" have gone the way of the flight engineer.
As for Kornholios' little rant, I wonder if he'd fell the same way if HE was paying for the fuel!!!