this is a very amusing topic to read the replies.
at school they taught me to plan always such a way that you preserve enough energy to go all the way from TOD to Final, without using any thrust other then (full)idle.
now with the company i work for we usually do this, and as taught, speedbrakes is a way of correcting for bad planning of descend and getting back on profile, or when ATC requires a quicker descend.
using the speedbrakes mean you're literally throwing away energy, and that's bad airmanship.
you should get to know you aircraft and plan accordingly when to start your descend so to not use it.
and where you're flying a star which requires some step downs, you can also apply this theory.
as long as you're not throwing out the energy.
i fly the md80, here we have vnav but usually i use the v/s and plan it myself. this because the vnav requires input data of the current winds for it to predict your TOD.
using the V/S you can anticipate going above profile, increase your RoD (while still above 10,000ft) and go under profile, keep going under profile which the increased speed, then start earlier to reduce your RoD when you're approaching 10,000 so as to reduce your speed to 250kts.
and then depending on your weight, you maintain the required RoD(v/s) so to maintain the 250kts all the way down to your given altitude.
with a good planning taking into account head and tail winds / freezing level and actual weights/mass, you'll do this time after time without going out of idle thrust, and certainly not using speedbrakes.
practice makes prefect.