Pat
There is a lot of evidence in GBI of great courses "designed" at the same time as Merion going through what (to most of us, at least) seems to have been a very similar Committee-led collaborative process, involving "experts" (significantly inlcuding the local pro and head greenkeepr) to a greater or lesser degree, usually lasting over a number of years, often decades. County Down, Portrush, Portmarnock, Lahinch, Dornoch, Carnoustie and Aberdeen come immediately to mind.
As others have said on some of the related threads, a central concern of any aspiriational course in the early 20th century was finding a way to deal with the Haskell ball, which effectively made many previous assumptions about what was and was not a "good" golf hole and/or "good" course obsolete, or at least quaint. Nobobdy had "the" answer to these evolving problems, so it is not at all surprising that so many of the best courses built or significanlty remodeled in the 1905-1920 period were directed by a Committee of the people actually on the ground and with significant accumulated knowledge of how their course actually played, rather than the periapetetic "architects" who often advised them.
As to your primary question, of course a Committee of GCA.com wingnuts could design and build a very good/great course, if properly advised (as you suggest) on some of the more practical and esoteric issues and (of course) given land as good as Merion (i.e. OK, but not great). We have examples even within our little community of this being done. However, whether or not the course is acknowledged as being great depends on a lot more things that inherent quality. There are courses as good as Merion or NGLA out there that are not as highly thought of, mostly (IMO) because they did not have such prominent Committees (even if, in the case of NGLA, it was a Committee of one...), and as a result are not as well known, have never had any prestigious event awarded them, etc. in a vicious cycle. But, that is a subject for another thread....
rich