Personally, I think there's very limited value in an overhead join at a controlled airfield.
Forgive me if I disagree on that one, bookworm; you cannot make such a blanket statement. It's one of a number of ways to integrate traffic depending on the numbers, types, positions, intentions etc of all involved and most certainly has its uses. At times, ATC has to make a judgement call that joining directly into the circuit could be less than safe; also, it can be used as a tactic to delay an inbound for a perfectly sound traffic reason.
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