Reports I read said that the airport the Polish President's aircraft was trying to land at was not equipped with any sort of precision approach (ILS, GPS, RNAV, etc) equipment. So it wouldn't have mattered in that particular case. It's my, speculative, opinion that after trying to land 4 times and having to go around so much, the crew came down with a case of "get-there-itis" and wasn't considering an alternate like they should have been (perhaps compounded by low fuel and the head of state).
I imagine that the modified 742's the Air Force use are equipped with all sorts of goodies, including autoland and the ability to fly some "reserved for military use" precision approaches.