Chip, you wrote, "First, I've never liked par 5's where the 2nd shot for most people is a short iron layup... Second, I don't like any hole where the landing area for the longer hitters is bigger/wider than for normal or shorter hitters... Finally, while WF has done a great job in recent years of getting rid of overhanging trees from the fairway, a decent tee shot on #12 still leaves a "normal" hitter with a blocked line on his 2nd shot. That, folks, is what Stupid Trees do."
I think that you are looking at the hole through today's eyes rather than the eyes of the man who designed it in the 20's.
It was originally a 497-yard par five, with the tee being actually just right of where todays fairway line begins. The landing area for the average player or one who chose to lay-up was in between the two right side fairway bunkers. The shots played to them would have been from a stance in among the three "capes" and would have been difficult to that location, especially as the land slopes down into it, made more so by the lower trajectories hit then.
Anyone who felt strong enough or who had hit a long enough drive could go for it in two, as both Espinoza and Jones did during the '29 Open.
It was a tremendous risk/reward 2 & 1/2 shotter back then. Hole lengthening caused by technology is what has brought the trees along the left side into play, and not the design characterisitics of the hole.
Actually, I think they are a good answer to the technology, especially when the hole plays forward in the 550-570 range as it did in the Open.
Basically, here is a hole that suffers because of technology... if it suffers at all.