Really, if you look at patterns that people actually fly, there is not so much difference in philosophy as you think. I challenge everybody to download log files from your airport, or contest, plot them, and see what they look like. Some base legs have long straight segments between sharp turns, some are merely connected gentle turns from downwind to final, but we all end up in the same place, on a controlled glide path and airspeed, safely aligned with the runway. The only thing that is confusing to students is authoritarian pronouncements of single and often incorrect ways to fly it. For example, nobody really flies downwind with a 45 degree lookdown angle to the runway, that would put them 800' away at 800 AGL, with no hope of flying a controlled base leg. Even the author of that silly guideline doesn't fly that close, if you look at his igc files at competitions. Most people fly downwind 2000-2500 away from the runway, which is more like a 20 degree lookdown angle. Do the math, look at what you actually fly, look at what other people fly. For example, see http://noss.ws/temp/patterns.jpg for a sampling of patterns a dozen or so experienced pilots flew and logged on OLC in varying conditions at the same location on the same runway.