Yes, there is a certain amount of "drilling holes in the sky", and it is a great shame in some cases that JARs are so inflexible. However a modular course will generally work out around £10,000 cheaper than an integrated course if you build hours in the US. That money can be very useful either in extra training if you feel you need it before your CPL skills test or IRT, for example, or perhaps more importantly for a JOC (Jet Orientation Course) or LOFT course (Line-Orientated Flight training). These are often useful in gaining employment after graduation.
And you can have great fun over there - the flying culture is completely different, and at the school where I built hours (shan't mention the name, or people will slate it and the thread will be closed, but I had fun) the social life was great - almost all European students, away from home and enjoying themselves.