"Pretty obvious to me they weren't doing an ILS, nor had a LNAV route in the box. It was a Visual Approach via a wide right base, so none of the above (capturing) would be expected."
At the time of the briefing some 150nm before I'm sure an LS would have been discussed and the STAR + ILS inserted in 'the box'. Therefore there would have been a VNAV path in the FMC and its data being displayed at all times on the ND no matter what pages were displayed on the CDU. Surely, even when performing a visual to an ILS the Nav Aids would have beens selected and surely APP armed? The "glide slope" caution must have shouted at them many times. These aids would have been tuned and identified long before they started this manoeuvre. The gate where they entered this roller coaster was a wide base leg. I suspect the captain was blind to the RWY for much of base leg; but he might have had the rwy insight when requesting the visual; one hopes so. However he then flew into a blind spot. I wonder what help was given from RHS about the visual profile. It is still the case that instead of turning in all the data was screaming to turn out for a bit. Once agin all the time hoping to be gained was lost, or worse. As with Cali; it is better to be 5 minutes late than 20 years too early.