Seems to me you're all missing a few important points.
1/. Dive and Drive has lost favour for one very important reason. It's a lot less safe than a constant profile. In any aircraft let alone Transport Cat Jets.
2/. If the NPA you are flying is a runway approach you'll fly to the MDA and if not visual go around immediately. WHY? Because 99% of the time the MAP is at the aid and the aid is to close to the runway to make the straight in approach from the MAP. You cannot circle from that minima so there is no reason to hang around. The absolute safest way to fly these types of approach in heavy aircraft is to fly a constant profile to the MDA.
3/. If you're flying an NPA that is not a runway approach you descend to the higher circling minima and at the MAP decide whether you have the criteria to circle. In my opinion there is no good reason to get down early for a better look because what the ceiling/vis etc is 3nm from the MAP is not as relevant as that from the MAP onwards in the piece of sky you will be circling in! Thus a constant profile descent to a point say 2nm before the MAP should be sufficient to level the aircraft, have a look, decide and then GA if not visual. The other risk that this avoids is when you get 'visual' at the edge of the circling area and descend further to stay visual before actually sighting the runway, and then subsequently lose visual reference, requiring a GA from below MDA and possibly offset somewhat towards the edge of 'protected airspace'.
I spent years flying NPAs for real in everything from Islanders to F28s and Bae146s and the dive and drive is only practiced by old and bolds who refuse to change, for no other reason than they perceive their way as the way "real pilots do it", or "that's the way we did it in the good old days". They usually fail to remember that they were in a DC3 or some such.
The NPA I fly most often these days is the Kathmandu VOR/DME and you can bet your ar$e that I have the relevant profile written on the plate, there is simply no safer, more predictable, and for 411a, more professional way of flying that, or any other NPA.
411a the reasons CRM and descent profiles have evolved (among other things) is because the way you 'old guys' did it in the 'good old days' was not the best way it could be done! Certainly not in the equipment that has prevailed in airlines of the last 30+ years! I suspect that you are retired now anyway, there is no way that any airline C&T department would tolerate you diving and driving on your sim checks these days!
Chuck.(C&T Dassault Falcon 200)