Pat,
Putting an untrained staff member on course setup is a recipe for disaster for more than one reason. Among them are simple things like setting the cup perpendicular and deep enough all the way up to make locations reasonable. Also, factors such as time and daylight available before the first group off in the morning play into things. It takes me roughly 1.5 hours per nine to do setup, and a lot of the times more because the setup man is also responsible for fixing ball marks and sometimes filling in tee divots on par 3s.
I can assure you the selecting hole locations and actually setting them are two very different things, and when that task falls on one person in the morning can be quite time consuming.
What I mean by rigid variety is the amount of tee space available to move tees and vary angle/yardage, the size of the greens and their contour - things that add variety but do not change from day to day.
The idea with superintendents is to be an invisible factor in the daily golf lives of the members as a whole. One of the most visible instances of the superintendent's work is in course setup. While there are people such as yourself or some of Golfclubatlas.com who applaud and appreciate variance in setup - a "out of ordinary" hole can be a magnet for misdirected criticism. Believe it or not, this is what was taught to me by more than one person and the attitude seems to permeate the business. I don't know how many times I've seen a new hole location be blamed for a double bogey or more, and we're not necessarily talking unfair or even difficult.
Yes, I agree, that when it comes to setting up an interesting variety of holes from day to day a lot of this is distraction and clutter. But a lot of it is also the reality in the maintenance business these days. I would say that most superintendents are more concerned with the appearance and precision of the setup moreso than the locations of the hole providing interest and challenge.
Most superintendents I know are golfers... and most golfers I know don't understand the architectural assets a course has. I'd say superintendents mirror the golf community as a whole in terms of architectural knowledge and where they place it in importance, but that is just my experience to date.