I agree completely, Mr Doak. I'll use Mr. Wernecke's analogy of women. One may not like all Swedish women, but most of us will agree that, say Elin Nordegren-Woods is pretty darned attractive. I'm sure most architects have designed some real stinkers. But if you really wanted to make an architect-rating system, here is the only way I might do it, but this method is totally hypothetical, as it leaves much up to dispute.
Here goes: you figure out the best 500-1000 courses in the world, and arrange the courses by architect, and you take the architect with the highest percentage of his courses in that top 500-1000 (you can weight the average if you want). But there must be qualifications; a minimum course requirement, say 15 or so.
Just a thought.
Personally, I consider Raynor/Macdonald/Banks as one entity, though I'm sure there are some differences in their work. I put this tripod in my own personal top three (though I've only played Yale and Hotchkiss), along with Strantz and Ross perhaps.