the big push these days is to commission more straight-in RNAV/GPS approaches including WAAS enhanced LNAV/VNAV
The salient difference between a straight in and circling approach is that with circling the final stage of the approach design task is dumped upon the crew at MAP, the most critical segment. WAAS enhanced LNAV/VNAV approaches give the crews a completed design.
Add to that that airports without straight in approaches tend to have terrain constraints that are often invisible at night as pointed out by the Aspen report Westhawk has kindly posted:
Although this accident occurred only 7 minutes after the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of night, the mountainous terrain created twilight and nighttime conditions much earlier. The controller-in-charge stated, in a postaccident interview, that the sky was "very dark" in the minutes before the accident. In fact, the Safety Board calculated that the sun had set below the mountainous terrain about 25 minutes before the official sunset time60 and that evening civil twilight ended about 1830 rather than 1855. Also, the shadow for the ridge immediately to the west of the accident site would have crossed the accident site 79 minutes earlier than official sunset. As a result, the dark conditions would have significantly degraded the flight crew's ability to see and safely avoid terrain while making the visual transition from the instrument approach to an intended landing. The reduced visibility and light snow showers near the airport would have further degraded the flight crew's ability to see and safely avoid the terrain.
This accident reveals that the aeronautical definition of night does not adequately take into account darkness in mountainous terrain. Specifically, because pilots do not have sufficient ambient lighting to see and safely avoid unlighted terrain during periods of darkness before official night, the night restriction on the VOR/DME-C approach is not enough to ensure safety of flight. Thus, nighttime restrictions may not sufficiently mitigate potential hazards associated with flight operations into ASE and other airports with mountainous terrain during periods of darkness.61
61 To address this issue, the Safety Board issued Safety Recommendation A-02-08 on April 15, 2002. Safety Recommendation A-02-08 asked the FAA to "revise any restrictions and prohibitions that currently reference or address `night' or `nighttime' flight operations in mountainous terrain so that those restrictions and prohibitions account for the entire potential period of darkness or insufficient ambient light conditions, and establish a method to clearly communicate to flight crews when such restrictions and prohibitions apply."