Several people make the point that for most of us, even middling courses are not "obsolete" thanks to equipment technology.
I think you are all correct.
This is a problem that is confined almost exclusively to elite-level players. Much as I despise any form of "bifurcation,' the USGA is already headed, quietly, in that direction thanks to the new groove rule and the odd enforcement methods they have chosen. To the USGA's credit, they say they are firmly opposed to any bifurcation. The the USGA's shame, the new rule leads in that direction. To the USGA's credit, it is a very mild and exceedingly clever and inoffensive kind of bifurcation.
But to most average recreational players, I say this to them about the Pro V era (and all solid mulitlayer urethane balls); how much yardage have those balls given you? Do you even know? Is it even measurable? The simple fact is, most recreational players don't even spring for $50+ boxes of Pro V's. They buy cheaper balls, usually Surlyn- or other ionomer-cover balls. If we banned Pro V's, tomorrow, the tour pros wouldn't know what to do. For you and me, it wouldn't mean much of anything.
I think (as does Jack Nicklaus, I know) that there have been two problems in the Pro V era. The first is the distance explosion for elite players. The second is the expanding gap between eilite players and merely good players. Nicklaus says that when he was in his prime, (and he was very, very long -- easily as long if not longer than Tiger in strict comparison to his peers) he still played a game that was within the same general parameters as other professionals, club pros, etc. That is no longr true. Now tour professionals, thanks to the dynamics of urethane balls and bigger driver heads, are just incomprehensibly long. The game, and the game's great championship courses, are totally distorted.
I do not favor a ball rollback to go back to older equipment, retro designs, or some old way of playing. But I do favor exploitation of the best new technology available to craft new ball specs that would close the gap I am talking about, and restore, for elite players, the shot values that have been lost at thousands of golf courses.
I think we need to address the elites because they are where the problem is. I don't care much about the recreational players because they are not much of a problem. But I think the notion of a single unified game played by one set of rules is essential to the spirit of golf. (That'd make a dandy book title, wouldn't it?)