Mats that is best practise. But with alot of controllers with limited experence in procedural control if any Just don't realise the problems that occur if you don't. Unfortunatly I don't think its being taught anymore.
They have their cunning plans which work great with vectors for the ILS. But when used for vectors for NPA they can cause problems. Its lack of appreciation more than anything.
This is going slight out side the realms of Private GA flying but illustrates the problems that experenced commercial operations have.
Alot of companys have a different set of SOP's for flying NPA's to ILS's
On an ILS you can configure while decending. NPA's you have to be fully configured before the final decent point back to Vref + 10 which can be as low as 140knts. So vectors to a 10 mile final at a none platform height with top of decent at 6 miles and speed control of not less than 160 to 4 is a bit of an issue.
From a light aircraft point of view it is the same, by far the easiest and safest way of flying these things is by flying them fully configured for landing. Anything which deviates away from the published procedure increases the work load 10 fold.