My "dive and drive" example is a little drastic. Just wanted to make my point clear. I prefer a smooth decent too. But when the weather is critical I wan't to be at the MDA as soon as possible.
but dooes not meet the 'Required Visual References' criteria
I might be wrong on this, but when I have the "requested" 2,5km (for example) at 650ft, runway environment in sight and in the circling area I meet the required visual references?
Similarly, your circling suggestion could be bad news - why weren't you visual before the MAPT? Maybe because the cloud was thicker and lower before that point, and now you are turning and descending towards it! With broken cloud, there is always the possibility of encountering that unwanted 'okta' at the...
Of course, this possibility does exist.
But in the real world you probably have the actual weather at the aerodrome from the ATIS or TWR. The location of the TWR controller is most likely very near at the MAPt (near the runway) so he should be able to give you a pretty clear picture of the weather and therefore the possibility to get IMC or not during circling.
And again... we are flying helicopters. Circling is not a traffic pattern.
It could also mean that the approach is not aligned with the runway, so I wouldn't need to turn back into IMC.
Back to the legal stuff, DA or MDA:
Non PC-Plod, could you post a picture of the chart?
Haven't seen one of those approaches before.