Circling approaches like the old NDB approaches of old ( level off at MDA and then dive? ) have little place in modern day long haul operations in big heavies. In my old nippy B737-200 days I did hundreds if not thousands of those; it was highly sporty and exhilarating. Now on the big heavy 744 crossing many time zones with big sleep deficit, it would be insanely suicidal to do those kind of stuff.
All those who boast of their superior manual flying skills are just full of hot air or just too full of themselves. When I did those circling and old style NDB approaches, I was young flying a very responsive sporty narrow body jet doing mainly domestic fields which I knew like the back of my hand. I was also always well rested with no time zone induced jet lag. Different ball game now on long haul heavy jets to airfields I fly to maybe once or twice before.