"It sounds to me like if the G/S was not out of service, this accident would not have happened"
I think RNAV(GPS) vertical guidance was available. This was mentioned in this post:
http://www.pprune.org/7934022-post1553.html
Also it was published:
http://nbaa.org/ops/airspace/regiona...approaches.pdf
The inop GS was NOTAM'd so it wasn't a surprise. If they didn't feel good about hand flying a visual approach w/o GS, why not use a synthetic glideslope via RNAV(GPS)? Regardless of the approval status, couldn't it be used in an advisory mode under VFR?