I was discussing, with a friend at a major EU national carrier, the whole issue of big/small a/c approaches and piloting techniques at their HUGE very noise sensitive hub. Not much has changed since my days there when flying for one of the 'lower down the food chain' local airlines. Visuals are allowed during the day hours; be sure not to overfly built up areas, keep it quiet and establish finals not <1000'. Seems all hunky dory, simple, fun, skilful. Easy to make the decision last minute and just fly the damn a/c onto finals using Mk.1 eyeball. And that's without PAPI's if the ILS GP is transmitting. My friend took great delight in doing just this with a B747 and now with B737. Indeed, it is encouraged with B737 to allow a short turn in ahead of a further out B747 to save time/spacing. The most basic of piloting manoeuvres.
It would seem one major?? airline would ask for a hold to brief such a manoeuvre, set up the FMC for an LNAV/VNAV, then call ready; by which time you have slipped back from No.1 to No.4 behind 3 heavies.
They do, now, fly into said hub. I wonder how it goes on busy days?
Regarding the comment about a visual approach has no minima: airlines tend to have a 500' gate. To rely solely on PM to call it out from memory is a hole in the cheese. They are likely looking more outside than in. Consider how many incidents/accidents have been contributed to by a pilot not calling out/warning the other of a parameter. If there is an automatic method available to make such a call e.g. "minimums" at 500' why not use it. Close the hole. In my spam-can the land/GA decision is usually about flare time; unless it was blindingly obvious a minute earlier. Glide approaches are allowed in the 'busy bees'.