There's a time and place for both, of course, but at regional airports when coming in from the opposite side to the approach direction, the procedure has considerable merit.
Then you just shoot the Backcourse approach with a circle to land right
But I've noticed during IMC rating revalidations that some pilots do indeed lose situational awareness .......... They are also worse at coping with accurate instrument flying and RT when following vectors... A few years ago RT was simplified for procedural approaches; you probably called beacon outbound and glidepath descending and that was all. Whereas with vectors you have to listen, acknowledge, fly the instruction and keep a mental note of where you are.
Not a very persuasive argument for the IMCr there Beagle....