I think its time we brought back gravel traps and grass - partly from aesthetics and partly because it would stop the pisstaking of going wide in corners and not being punished at all. Great corners are not thrilling for the drivers or spectators if surrounded by a mile of asphalt. The main danger of gravel is barrel-rolling, and that dissipates so much energy that its actually safer than spearing into a barrier head on (which asphalt has no effect on if the car has a brake failure or it is wet), not to mention that safety cells are pretty much bullet proof now. The gravel at Monza and how it used to be at the Nurburgring was sloped upwards towards the barriers, which was perfectly good for stopping cars reaching them at speed. On the aesthetic side, i remember how horrendously horrible the A1-Ring looked in 2003 when they asphalted all the run-offs there - and it is probably the most beautiful setting in the world for a circuit...
Another point: If gravel had been surrounding the Abu Dhabi track, I doubt Alonso would have gone wide and hurt his back...
Or, at the very least, if you are going to have super-safe asphalt runoff, then at least put the stands closer to the track - I refuse to spend my hard-earned money going to races at modern circuits as the spectators look so detached (luckily I've been to races at Melbourne, Montreal and Monza where the stands are still pretty close to the action).
But yes on a new circuit with miles of run-off why have chicaned corners? The original end of the esses at Austin was meant to be much faster until Charlie chicaned it, yet it would not have been unsafe at all. Abu Dhabi is just a joke - that chicane before the hairpin is one of the most excruciating corners to watch F1 cars go round (and its bloody unsafe - the amount of times cars end up on top of each other there is unreal - e.g. GP2 this year or Schumacher/Luizzi in 2010).
And its time to surround Eau Rouge with gravel again. I was rewatching some old onboards recently going through there, and seeing drivers thread it through that narrow ribbon was amazing - now its just 'uh, he's done it flat and gone wide. Big deal'.