Folks,
Now I will set the cat among the pigeons.
A teaching technique that applies to large aircraft (but Bloggsie wants to dance around the point) is to use "attitude controls climb and descent, power controls airspeed".
With some special variations not applicable here, and not applicable in RVSM airspace ever, this is exactly what modern (in fact almost all) autopilots do, and it applies equally well to a voice activated autopilot's hands and feet.
Indeed, many moons ago, when I had an ab nitio student who was having trouble with "attitude controls airspeed, power controls rate of climb or descent" I would dump the "approved" as preceding, and use as para1.
Indeed, I would go so far as to set a PA-28/C-172/whatever up on final, on speed and height/slope, and use a chinagraph pencil to arrange a "gunsight" cross on the windscreen and set on the aiming point on the runway.
Then: "Just keep the cross on the aiming point (usually the threshold marks on a sealed runway) and fly XX knots with the throttle". The transition to flying a stable approach, on speed, on slope,was rapid, and for students I can well remember, the boost to their confidence was (to them) remarkable, but to me, expected.
Indeed, one (then) young lady who had already done about 18 hours with another school, without looking like ever going solo, was off solo with us in a couple more hours. Said young lady suddenly really started to enjoy flying, to the degree that she decided to make it a career, went through to commercial with us. Last time I heard, she was an IRE/TRE flying seriously large machinery, a long way from the point where she was about to give up, until somebody suggested she change schools --- because "the other mob" did things differently" --- which we certainly did.
Going back to my "time warp" comments, "back in the day" in GA, all approaches were glide approaches, attitude certainly did control airspeed da-da da, and a burst of throttle or a side-slip, if/when necessary, to (in modern parlance) adjust the touchdown (another way of saying the aim) point, give or take for a flare and float.
That you can fly all aircraft the same way, (even a delta) regardless of size, seems to be lost on quite a few.
I most certainly agree about the primary importance of angle of attack, if you are on approach, on slope and on speed, you will have the desired angle of attack for that operation.
All the modern FAR 25 aircraft, of which I have a detailed knowledge, all have a series of inputs into an Air Data Computer, beyond just raw pitot and static pressure/temperature, and will include angle of attack and where available, inertial acceleration/deceleration, to compute and display IAS (effectively CAS), low speed limits and generate "stall" warnings, that are not "stall" warnings at all, but low speed warnings.
As some of you will be aware, "Vs" is no longer the basis for establishing various V reference speed for larger FAR 25 aircraft, such speeds are based on an increment above the Cl max. angle of attack CAS. For approach, that Vref is generally 1.2 Cl max CAS.
So, where does that get us, flying a light aircraft (FAR 23 or predecessor CAR) and being asked to demonstrate a "precautionary" or "short field" approach versus a "normal" approach.
There is a good argument to make, that there is no such distinction, what is being "demonstrated" is the ability to fly an approach at the "book Vref" IAS, instead of the generally quite excessive IAS speed all too often called "normal".
You should NOT be expecting/required to demonstrate a "different" approach when the landing field length is critical, if you fly the book figures for every approach (with a small allowance for gust), that becomes your "normal", and the day you fly into your mate's farm, or you have to land somewhere due, say, stress of weather, you will have no concern about you ability to fly the approach. You must have a "reasonable" margin over "the stall", the "Book" speed gives that, and it is always lower risk to roll off "the other end" at slow speed, than lose control on approach.
In the "Half MVsquared" world it is the Vsquared wot gets ya on a bad day.