I fly A319/20/21's, only use Speed brakes regularly on the 319's as at certain weights it can sometimes be tricky to keep 160kts till 4d in flap 2. A trickle of speed break is better than using the gear as then you have an excess of drag and the power comes on. Better to be at idle all the way and then configure to be in the groove spooled up by 1000', checks complete and all above board. So there is nothing wrong with using a bit of speed break, but at the same time as most will say 3 times table works well for decent profile management and then plus 5-10 miles for slow down. But we're bombing around at cost index 10 at the mo so no need for extra to slow down, can't get much slower!