Leaving the star that late only gives you 6 minutes in the cruise to adjust your speed, which will comfortably only give you about +/- 30 seconds.
Granted that could a problem if are given a 03 Instrument STAR from the North when you were expecting 21 but your speed will already be set because you would have got a Feeder Fix time well before then. So for 21, when you get the STAR is virtually irrelevant. The routing to the runway is the same and you will have set the speed to make your FF time well before.
As for late runway changes, I don't recall any major dramas or panic about feeder fix compliance; either you can or you can't, simple as that. Not your fault. ATC just manage with vectors until everything settles down.
Originally Posted by Plazbot
Many places in the real world you are not locked onto an arrival until 60 to touch down let alone top of descent.
That may be so but when you don't know the arrival runway until you get the ATIS at 200 to run eg 21 or 03, managing a Feeder Fix time when the worst case (opposite runway/30 extra track miles to that expected) will result in a much quicker TAS through the fix/suddenly early, with little speed potential to correct at that late stage (can't slow down a lot up high).