A very good point, Gomer. I use that approach for offshore and mountains for the very reasons you describe. It works for me, and dire prognostications of ending up in a ball of aluminium won't stop me.
Steep to me is where you don't have enough forward speed to fly away, rather than an angle as such. Shallow, as demonstrated to me by one guy in Penticton, is an almost horizontal approach at the top of the max continuous power range (when heavy), with nothing up the sleeve if you need it at the end and your collective already high if you get a problem, and not there to help you slow down, which is one mountain technique. The approach that 170' describes is called the eye-level approach there, and is what should be used to get set up, but having done all that, I still wait for my normal sight picture.
I feel that you have to maximise your chances of getting into your site in a hostile environment, with or without an engine, and using a shallow approach ain't part of it.
For those of you who are curious, I did the basics in the British Army, then flew in Scotland for four years, learning from a guy who had flown in Nepal for fifteen years. Looks like he was a bit if a rebel
. They may be small, but Scottish "hills" will still kill you. They flipped Ken Kendal upside down in his 206.
The British Army teach the steep approach (or at least they did then) - the stronger the wind, the steeper you got. The Canadians teach the shallow one, but they got that from Okanagan. Go figure.
This is a demarcation line:
Phil