Sean,
My home course, at Essex G&CC in Windsor, ON Canada, features a network of grass ditches created to deal with storm water over a very flat property. The course was designed by Donald Ross during the late 1920s.
I can't say Essex' ditches set-up great strategies, but they're in play; and, they certainly provide golfers with a sense of some topographic relief over this very flat course. I think this is an important element of the design of the course.