My point has always been this: if one plays smart, par SHOULDN'T matter. Outside of stableford, no tournament or match is won by how many birdies or bogeys are made, but rather by the number of strokes made or number of holes won. So par SHOULD be irrelevant.
BUT... par most definitely DOES matter, to the vast majority of golfers. In fact I'd say most are a slave to it. Change TOC 17 to be a par 5 and most play it quite differently without a doubt. Evidence I've given is #1 at Pasatiempo, which a few years ago was changed from being listed as a par five to a par 4, without changing the distance one bit. Way way back tees were closed, but other than that, the only real change if anything has made the hole play effectively easier - trees were removed in front of the green, trees were thinned to the right. But ask most golfers if it's a tougher and easier hole today and most will say "much tougher", although the number of strokes they take today has to be less than they took 10 years ago! And why? Because they relate to par, not to number of strokes.
SO... darn right par can be used as an offensive weapon. The folks at Pasatiempo have proven it.
TH
Well duh, what the heck did you expect? If you ask me how hard a hole is, what basis do I have for comparison OTHER than par? Otherwise, if you ask me whether a par 3 that's known as one of the toughest par 3s around is tougher than a par 5 that's known as one of the easiest par 5s around I'd have to say the par 3 is, because almost everyone's average score will be lower on the par 3 than the par 5!
And I'll say that despite being able to give you 100% assurance that you can mess with the par numbers on any hole in the world and it won't change how I play them. Make CPC #16 a par 5, I don't care, I'm still going for the green. Make TOC's 1st a par 3 and I'm not going to imitate one of Tiger's 100% literally-swinging-out-of-his-shoes drives and hope for a lucky bounce over the burn because I feel a need to reach the green in "regulation".
TOC's 17th used to be a relatively easy par 5, now it is a really hard par 4. That doesn't say anything about how par's relationship to how one play's the hole, it merely points out the requirement for a point of reference when evaluating how hard a hole is.