...I still believe that even on a CAVOK day a purely visual approach should not be done by Heavies or Supers in this day and age. It adds a level of risk that is avoidable, irrespective of the skill level of the pilot.
Sorry Moose, but that is nonsense. If you say that heavy pilots are just too rusty and un-current to perform a visual approach, then I think those pilots are also too rusty to perform a normal takeoff, or just to even hand-fly. At least in a visual approach you know when things are coming, unlike vectoring. So how can that lead to an unstable approach?
I suggest that the same pilot that crashes an aircraft on a visual approach in day CAVOK is a risk altogether - regardless of approach. How would they have handled an engine failure on an ILS approach into SFO? Or one at V1 on takeoff? How would he have handled a cargo fire over the Pacific? Fact - flying a visual approach is a required skill. If you can't perform it, you have no business being in the pointy end because you are most likely also missing other critical skills.
Everybody messes up an approach at one time or another for some reason, and recognizing when to throw it away when it goes pear-shaped is also a required skill. So I'm not saying everybody should be Chuck Yeager here.
There is risk, and then there is going flying. You want to get rid of the risk all together, then fine, don't go flying. But saying that a visual approach during CAVOK is too risky, is just plain ridiculous. If you consider a visual approach riskier than an instrument approach, then you are just "doing it wrong son", and you should consider your SOPs and training to be the problem (especially if it is widespread in your airline - i.e., lots of visual approach screw ups and go-arounds).
A coupled ILS is much riskier; an autopilot failure, or signal interference can lead to a pretty bad situation. Bad enough for a pilot who crashes from a visual approach to miss. I think most pilots will agree that the toughest maneuvers we perform during our checking events are LVO approaches with low altitude failures. They can happen so fast that you really have no option of brain farting or delaying. It truly is a split second decision. And they do happen, not just in training (ILS 07R HKG notam for autoland, SIA 777 in Munich recently)