Jeff,
Good point. There's a muni in town here that was bought from a developer as a nine hole course when he went bankrupt, and the city added another nine on some land it bought. The new nine is a great course, and really contrasts with the occasionally narrow and quirky original nine.
Some of the quirk was due to the developer apparently not realizing the size of required playing corridors (made worse with today's technology) and but one extremely quirky 270 yard par 4 with a slight dogleg right was created from the ashes of a 350 yard 90* right dogleg. Apparently whoever bought the property in the corner of that dogleg didn't realize what they were getting into, and didn't like all the golf balls raining down on their house from people trying to cut the corner.
Its a really weird hole now, its driveable in theory, but with OB right, long left and water left, a super steep uphill slope for the last 60 yards and a small tabletop green, its not a particularly high percentage shot though I did bust a 1 iron up there from the 255 tees once during a scramble. It is interesting to see all the different strategies people will try out on that hole (I gave up trying other stuff and now just hit a lazy 7 iron off the tee for the only flat lie and SW up the hill)
The old green from this hole is now used for a 105 yard par 3 that's pretty boring. I wish they'd rebuilt that green and done something crazy with it, a short hole with a big flat green is such a wasted opportunity!