Obviously it can be overused so you don't want this on every hole, but I think even a tiny little pot bunker put roughly sorta kinda in the center of the fairway where drives may land, or vaguely in the preferred layup area on a par 5 can add a lot of interest to a hole that may otherwise have little.
Think of a course you know that's pretty good that has a few blah holes, and imagine adding a tiny little bunker like this, and think about how it would affect the thought process of people playing it.
I'm not a big fan of the huge fairway spanning cross bunker, or the huge yawning bunker sitting in the middle of the fairway. They are the bastard cousin of the pond or stream carry that's so badly overused in golf architecture already. They have their place, I'm not suggesting changes to Prestwick or NGLA by any means, but they look out of place on an otherwise modern looking course. I prefer something subtle, and a bunker doesn't have to be big at all to get into people's heads, even though their odds of finding it aren't great.