Matt Ward:
Yes, Shinnecock, Bethpage and Winged Foot/West (and Pine Valley and Merion and......) are "better" golf courses than Maidstone IMO for a couple of reasons - extreme difficulty being one of them.
But I wouldn't want to be stuck on any one of them for the rest of my life with no other options(assuming I'm going to live past the age of 65) - even from the very front of the front tee boxes. They're too damned hard and, further, they are maintained in "championship" condition which compounds the problem even further for the oldsters.
Maidstone is everything that Pat Mucci articulated and more.
There's a difference between "my favorite course (I have about 10 of those of which Cypress and Maidstone are just two; others include National, Merion, PV, Dornoch and 3-4 others)", "the greatest/best course I've ever played (I still give the nod to Pine Valley although Shinnecock is a very close runner up)" and "the one course I would play for the rest of my life if I was forced to choose (CPC followed by SFGC due to their excellence/greatness + 12 month playability).
Does that answer your question with candor and, hopefully, at least modest intelligence?