Jim, I've never viewed the numbers as anything other than a way to separate. I think I understand your points method, but that too has shortcomings. Like I said, there's right, wrong, and different.
Let me walk you through a scenario. The approach you have is similar to Course Rating or Slope where the criteria are given a number and you sum the total. (For C.R. and Slope it also tallies per hole; I'm not suggesting that you'd do it the same way.) Sounds great in theory, but let's put it in practice.
Say I'm at Pebble Beach, which I did play 23 years ago so this isn't entirely hypothetical. There are some pretty bland holes to get you started, and then a tease of the ocean on #7 with that little drop shot. (I played the old configuration before #5 was built. Yes I'm aware that and #6 are along the edge.) Now I get to #8 and climb the fairway only to be greeted by the magnificent approach and two wonderful par 4s, all serving as a prequel to the unrivaled finishing hole. How do you quantify that?
Judging from the rankings, the good offsets the bland (and then some) at a place like Pebble. Ditto Black Diamond's Quarry, which has 13 kinda normal (for Fazio) holes and the big 5. At the end of the day raters are asked to "bottom line" it. An employer I used to work for FORCED managers to do a "paired comparision" where they ranked all employees and each was superior in performance to those below them and below the level of all above. Don't bother me with all the specifics, did you prefer Friar's Head to Greywalls or not.
Golf Digest has the sum-of-the-parts approach, so maybe you are off the hook on creating a new method. Remember the complaints there. Your "intangibles" category has been called "tradition" and it functioned as an incredibly arbitrary way of undoing the rating work done in other categories.
Two specifics:
1) the old professional at a wonderful club knew their Donald Ross course was always ranked below a few other courses in the state. He had a great deal of pride in where he worked, and rightfully so. It is considered a great course by all on this board that have played it. One year GD made the move to 'disclosure' and showed the data collected for each criterion. You know the categories - Shot Values, Resistance to Scoring, etc...
Anyway if you netted out Tradition the course had more points than several in the Top 100. So he actually contacted GD and laid out a great case for garnering more tradition points. He had club history about Ross, stories of events held there, and details about their longtime member that won some USGA events a very long time ago. It was not possible to say that his club had more or less 'Tradition' than someplace else. How can you weight the value of a US Open held and is it more meaningful if such an event was won by Andy North or Orville Moody?
2) a friend of mine is a member at Sand Hills. I don't know that you can find ten people that have played there that can name three better courses in the WORLD that were built since WWII. It is without question as good as it gets. If there is a better course in heaven I hope my clubs die with me. Anyway, SH was ranked about 41 by Golf Digest and absolutely blew away the 20 courses just in front of it. If you netted out Tradition. Stripping that category I think you'll see it was about 7th or 8th in the US. Rarified air with Shinnecock, Augusta, Cypress Point, and a few others.
"Tradition? How can Sand Hills score low on Tradition? I don't think there's a more 'traditional' layout anywhere." He was right. If you go back to the days before irrigation and earthmoving equipment golf courses were just laid out over the linksland with minimal disruption to the native environment. I think the construction budget for Sand Hills was just $1.4 million with three-quarters of that allocated to irrigation. If it were in an area with predictable rainfall the course could have been completed for something under a half-million. The greens aren't USGA spec, they were smoothed a bit and seed was thrown down. Hard to get more 'traditional' than that.
And it scored real low for the category.
Finally, another criterion for GD is or was "Walking". In an effort to celebrate good designs and the superiority of walking to play golf, GD tacked on another 2 points to courses that allowed walking all the time.
I played Sanctuary with Jim Engh. To his credit he completed a course on a difficult site. The course is unwalkable. Or so I thought. Ron Whitten made it around Sanctuary without a golf car. Twice. The policy is that you can walk and that got them the two points. I play golf to play golf, not to hone my hiking or rockclimbing skills. Yet this has an impact on that course's place in the Top 100? Okay. It is a blast to play. At least when you see it in GOLFWEEK's Top 100 you know the panelists didn't prop it up because of a nonsensical policy that encourages walking a golf course that isn't suited for it.
I never worried too much about Digest's rankings, because I recognized the limitations and accepted them for what they were. Putting these policies in other words, you and I could have opened the greatest golf course in the world and it could not place higher than about 40th on their list because of the way the data was compiled.
It is important to understand why these 'props' made sense. Remember, Haig Point and Muirfield Village debuted in very high places and the increased emphasis on 'Tradition' was designed to suppress the hysteria of the new and wow factor.
I don't need to bed all the 10s in the world to see a girl and say she rates a 7 in appearance. Why is a golf course any different?