411A I agree that in the old days, in fact not so long ago at all the method of flying a NPA was the dive and drive, most of us were trained in this method throughout our initial training. However this has changed as the constant rate of descent procedure has been found to be both safer and more comfortable for pax. When I did my intitial pilot training there was no such thing as CRM...get my point.
The issue here is not if a pilot has the ability to fly MDA+50, despite the fact that most of us had to display that in order to get our ATP tickets, line flying has little to do with an FAA check ride. Major airlines around the world have recognized that the "stablized" approach not only increases situational awareness but also is safer.
The constant rate of descent method is no so widely recognized that Jepps decided to publish on their charts the dme crossing altitudes for the portion beyond the FAF.
The way we train pilots is two fold.
If the chart has the published dme/altitude profile then it is recommended to be used in conjunction with the published gradient which should be converted to FPA.
If the chart does not have published dme altitudes then the crew should calculate the profile of descent by first looking at the VOR (lets say), calculating its displacement from threshold (when on threshlod what should my dme read) then knowing we want to cross the threshold at 50 feet work back to platform altitude based of the gradient.
So if the VOR is 1 mile before the threshold and threshold elevation is 60 and platform altitude for the approach is 2000ft with a gradient of 5 it would be as follows.
At threshold (-1DME) we should be at 110ft at the VOR we should be at 410ft, at 1DME 710ft, at 2DME 1010ft, at 3DME 1310, at 4DME 1610ft, at 5DME 1910, at 5.3DME 2000ft.
Now this profile must be compared with the chart to ensure it complies with any DME/Altitude restrictions, it also complies with the FAF (FAF cannot be less that 5.3DME) and at MDA the pilot must have obviously visual contact to continue.