I'm getting the impression some people are scared of flying. Others appear to unable to fly unless they have rules, regulations and procedures to hang onto like a security blanket. We are talking about a simple procedure where you decide where to point the aircraft and not ATC. And there is no MDA, because you have sufficient visual reference to continue, like you do at the end of an instrument approach. It's just that this happens a lot earlier.
Given the choice, I'll always do a visual approach and I consider myself very fortunate in so much that I normally get to do one or two a week. It's just a shame that there are no visual departures because I'd like to do those as well. But that would be too radical because airports like to make the same houses suffer on every departure.
PM