For years on our 727's we only had 2 VOR's and a DME...with no groundspeed readout (some things in the "good ole' days" weren't that good). I always used 3:1 and 3,000 fpm flight idle decent as a starting point - then checked my progress every 1,000 feet or so to see how I was doing and adjust the decent rate for apparent headwind/tailwind. I always enjoyed the challenge of timing the restrictions just right. Kept things interesting.

Of course, many of these rules of thumb will soon be lost on the next generation.

Soon the common answer is gonna be...

"Build the fix with the altitude restriction on the FMS, select VNAV, let the autopilot follow the snowflake." (a part of me feels like it it cheating...tho I admit...it works very well)