5) Does anyone here fly instrument approaches purely by using a reporting point instead of a Nav Aid?
Yes, it's called a GPS Approach
There is a little aviation backwater about 3000nm W of here, not particularly significant since Columbus stumbled across it using some dodgy dead reckoning, but worth mentioning in this context because they have flown over a million such approaches and, hey, the place isn't completely littered with aircraft wreckage so maybe, just maybe, the morally and intellectually superior Eurocrats might pop over and see how these people are doing it.
I mean, they even have airports with NO TOWER i.e. NOBODY THERE and they have people flying instrument approaches!! Horror!!
BTW, I do like the idea of NATS turning off a VOR right in the middle of me flying a VOR approach. I doubt I would even notice because, like most smart pilots, I would be flying it with a .................................. GPS
Let's face it, how many people would notice if an NDB got turned off in the middle of an approach? There is no valid flag; the needle points all over the place anyway, and anyway most smart pilots fly NDB approaches with a .................... GPS too
But more seriously, it takes only the most basic due diligence (called "looking on a map") to work out how one could use a navaid (or GPS) to let oneself down to some reasonable MDH, say 700ft. 200ft is something quite different.