Tim,
My experience has been that enviromeddling affects the routing more than anything. The craftsmanship you define, including green complex shaping, fairway shaping and bunker placement, et al, is affected to a much lesser degree. Strategy is usually affected by more forced wetland carries, or narrower fairway corridors to save trees. Occaisionally, long strip bunkers are requrired to keep turf ( and the chemicals presumed necessary to maintain it) from being adjacent to waterways or sensitive areas. Sometimes, fairways have to be graded to drain away from water bodies, when of course, draining them to the water would be more natural, and might provide a better "backstop" for instance on a cape type hole. For the most part, however, I can't think of a hole where my bunker placement was affected, or at least, where it couldn't be worked into some reasonable environmental shceme.
The net result, is depending on the routing compromises for the environment, you might see some real stinker holes on an otherwise fine course, or some longer walks between holes to fit holes around the "off limits" areas, both of which would probably detract from your opinion of the course. (See the post on my Giants Ridge course a few weeks ago - essential point, "nice course, why the walks?")
Once that routing is set, the GCA is usually free to implement whatever he/she sees fit, and craftsmanship, at least in how you and I define it, shouldn't be affected, in general. Of course, if an owner with a fixed budget overspends to get an environmental permit, then the budget available to create fine features may be diminished. In fact, when courses get spread out, things like cart path and irrigation mains and sprinklers usually expand in quantity, further eroding the budget. Sometimes, this subtle increase over some projected budget creeps up on you. Another factor is the fixed budget versus the two year delay, without a corresponding inflation increase in the budget!
The typical result is greens consistently at or near the practical minimum size, when perhaps a really big honker here and there would stand out a bit, and the same with bunkers, where perhaps a few more well placed hazards would complete the aesthetic or strategic picture. Of course, in my case, "discretionary" earthmoving (that not required to raise an area for drainage, or cut through a hill for vision for example) goes down, which I gather most here would applaud! Some of us are minimalists by choice, others by our choice of owners!
Of course, I believe that Ross, et. al. probably had bigger budget constraints than we do, as they were generally working for a small group of men who each put up $1000 or so of real, not bank financed, money. I also believe, as many of you do here, that a lower budget certainly makes for a more creative architect! There is a certain mentality of scraping for every dollar that many architects have lost in the boom times. Believe me, I always consider it a privelege, and not a right to have nearly all the money I need! And I feel a responsibility to spend the owner's money wisely, not necessarily for ego items like waterfalls, but usually for more sod, drainage, or irrigation that will help them get the course open and maintain better when they do.
The truth of the matter is that the basics of a course - including USGA greens, more grading for draingage, flood control, and water quality control, etc. combined with rising standards of irrigation, cart paths, etc. AND the rising costs of permits, cubhouses, maintenance equipment, etc. make the budget for artistic or strategic elements correspondingly smaller than may have been so in the Golden Age. This usually spawns two reactions - the one described above where design sometimes becomes secondary, or a reaction similar to "Well, we're so far in debt, we may have a better chance to make it by spending MORE money on "fru-fru" items to be really spectacular." Neither reaction seems quite as "pure" as spending just enough money to make it right!
Jeff