It's not all that new, but yes, I've done it. DH also did it on his first quilt after I talked him through it.
The piping adds a little more bulk, but other than dealing with that, doesn't really present any more difficulties.
As to machine stitching the binding, that's how I do all my quilts. Interestingly enough, I've seen quilts over 100 years old that had machine stitched binding, and the binding fabric appears to be original (same fabric, same amount of wear and fading as fabrics in the quilt.). Since the binding was applied to the back and flipped to the front, I have to assume the machine stitching was original, too. One quilt historian I talked to said that was really the style in Canada in the
1930's.