Bill,
I personally think that firm greens rolling smooth at a good speed bring out the real character in a green. In how you play approach shots, how you play shots around the green and how you play on the green. Now, what is a good speed? That is the question and that should largely be determined, in my opinion, as the speed at which the greens begin to show their true colors. That can vary from course to course and from green to green.
One reality, mowing greens at different heights and rolling them differently is not really a good idea nor are many clubs going to go to this. Why should there not be variety in the difficulty of the greens? Slowing some greens down would be an attempt towards making the greens play more similar, and I think variety is more important.
Second reality, not every green is going to need slowing down and if in fact you do reduce green speed, the greens without slope, or as much, are going to significantly lose their subtle traits.
Third reality, speed is more equal to smooth than slow is. I must admit that I like putting on smooth greens as much as the next guy. Putting on slower, less smooth greens may be considered by some to be a purer form of the game, but I would rather putt on smooth and quick. Now, I don't consider slower greens to be a travesty, but the golfing public and private at large want smooth.
This said, have we taken greens too far because we can? In some cases, yes! At my home club, the greens are as smooth as you would ever want them to be, or really could be, rolling about 10 to 10.5. 11 brings a little more of the subtle traits in the greens out, but approaching 11.5, they are too fast. I played the US Amateur last year at Oakmont (speaking of severe greens!) at over 13! At that speed, the line may have been crossed between the best test of golf and a test of one's ability to not lose their mind.
To convince a membership to slow greens down to maintain strategic variety, you must be armed with the knowledge of how slow to go and what impact that has on the strategic variety and challenge that has evolved with the quicker speeds. In some cases, greens may be more interesting and present a more interesting challenge at the quicker speeds, which if you slow the greens down, may be lost. It is a balancing act. I would suggest that there may be more greens out there that can regain strategic variety by slowing down (without losing their character), then there are greens that needs areas massaged.
As to rebuilding the green, what we often do, especially in the northeast, is not rebuild the entire green, but subtlely adjust the area in question. In a very simplified version, this involves stripping the green, removing the seedbed, reshaping the subgrade, putting the seedbed back down and then relaying the sod. We have done this when impacting less than 500 square feet of a 5,000 square foot green. However, this can be really dangerous! You must clearly be making a substantial impact to even consider this. As Tom Doak pointed out, where do you stop? We recently looked at one green that clearly had a section that was no longer working, but in order to correct that spot, we had to impact other spots - and so on, and so on. The green still had plenty of variety so we chose to make very subtle changes outside of the green to allow for more variety in how you could play shots into and around the green.
The older architects certainly discussed economy, especially during the depression when talk of anything else would have left them with no work. However, I am quite confident that they would never trade strategic variety for economy, if and when they could.
As for wild greens verses toned down greens and the likeness of challenge. That is not necssarily comparing apples with apples. However, if a green needs significant speed to be interesting or a challenge, it lacks real character. Interest and challenge are not one in the same. While I may use the word challenge, I think it is more important to create interest and variety, regardless of what level of challenge it may create.
To my knowledge, the current 7th at Engineers has never been worked on. The current 8th used to be the 7th before they built a new 3rd hole and made the green for the old 3rd the 4th. That green was first rebuilt in 1999 and again in 2000 by us.
I applogize for writing too much. I got one of my undergraduate degrees was in Journalism and we had to write 1000 words a week for two years. It stuck.
My seven year old daughter is telling me she is bored, so I better go. Thanks for the disucussion! It is great fun.