Fuel Dump;
I believe that banning circle-to-land from aviation is unrealistic an economically unfeasible.
If I may, I don't think "banning circling approaches" is either being considered, or is the point here. I think competency in flying them is, which is the point you are also making.
Regarding economically-feasible, I think this is the main reason why many major carriers have as a matter of policy, essentially stopped doing them.
The cost of the sim time necessary to train crews to do them safely and then regularly check them to ensure the standard is being maintained, is high, and, given that they are generally rarely-used and that sim time is already at a premium, crowded with other training items of higher priority, (bear in mind that at some carriers, sim times have been reduced to 3.5hrs, and under AQP, time between recurrent sims/PPCs can be as high as 8 months vice the normal six months), I think that for most carriers it was less expensive to accept the occasional diversion than to spend the money on training.
I say this with some experience; I know airlines which, for example, do not teach the Managed Approach procedures for the A320 based upon the fact that they do not use or teach use of the Bird (and Mustache) - the Flight Path Vector and Flight Path Director - too expensive to train in the sim when they can use heading and vertical speed.
I think the safety of the circling maneuver was a lesser consideration primarily because we know that the maneuver, though of higher risk, can still be done safely under the correct training and checking regimes. I did many Canarsie approaches onto 13R at JFK in the DC9, DC8 and L1011 and loved flying every one of them but that was a time when we trained for and did circling approaches regularly. No longer.
PJ2