Paul Tomblin wrote:

You
see, I didn't know if when you can see the runway and everything between
you and it, you can use a contact approach and/or cancel and land VFR
regardless of whether the tower is reporting IFR visibilities.

No you cannot. If the field is IFR you must land under IFR, you may not
cancel. At a towered airport there's really no reason to cancel. You
may not get a contact approach either as that requires a mile vis. The
instrument approach merely puts you in a position to see the runway. At
some airports, the one I work at is one, we get conditions due to local
terrain where one half the airport is 0/0. The other half is clear and
a million. Legally you need an instrument approach to land. However
there's no reason to fly an extra 10-20 miles after receipt of said
clearance before landing. Once you have the runway in sight you proceed
visually to your runway. Very simple.