NFR,
Oh what a topic this is! So simple and yet we still have morons who have the audacity to berate ATC. Keg is correct: if you call "Visual" at 30nm you're a bloody idiot, since ATC is quite within their rights to say, "OK, you go for it laddie, I'm off out for a cup of tea" and leave you at the last assigned altitude.
Unless the pilot intends pulling out the DME Arrival chart (useless at some places because it's way too high to do a Straight-In) or join the circuit area for a three-legger or just happen to be on the LLZ, we really have no option but to keep getting radar descents until you CAN do a Visual Approach from the last height ATC assigned.
If the pilots in this case berated ATC, they (the pilots) need a good kick up the tail because they don't know what they are doing. It's not ATC's fault.
"Very shabby stuff, Bloggs!"