It seems the problem here is the airline SOP's, all the aircraft mentioned are quite capable of doing 160 to 4 and making a safe landing but someone has decided that the 1000ft stable point is sacrosanct or thou shall not drop the gear or a certain flap setting when you need it. Fortunately we use a slightly more flexible SOP which states that we should aim to stable by 1000ft, BUT if we think that we will be stable at 500ft we can continue down, if not stable at 500ft then you must go-around. It works very well and gives some flexibility, clearly if you are 170 with flap 2 at 1000ft you are not going to stable at 500ft so you go around. If you are a few knots fast or the power is not quite stable then the chances are you will be stable at 500ft and you continue.
It was basically worded like that to accommodate places like LHR that ask for 160 to 4. Tail wagging the dog?, well I suppose it is but our company and all the others who use LHR have an interest in maximizing runway capacity there. It does rather irritate me that many other places around the UK who clearly don't need it also now ask for it.