I would hate to be circling at that altitude in any aeroplane - FMC equipped or purely visual...
It's all a question of whether and how you are trained to do it but why not?
With some operators at certain airports a circle to land procedure is the only way of landing in specified weather conditions. If the crew have been appropriately trained there is no reason why such a manoeuvre cannot be conducted safely.
In terms of a purely visual day/night visual approach such as joining downwind on a normal 1500 ft circuit in a 737, the technique of "drawing" the circuit with waypoints and whatever for base and final fixes, does seem rather gimmicky, in my opinion.
Tee Emm, I agree with you! There seems to be a growing reluctance to fly a visual approach even when the conditions are ideal to do same. Ok there are issues such as identification of the correct runway/airport but surely pilots such be capable of comfortably hand flying a visual approach?