Good point on the luxury angle. Certainly each new thing is a reaction to the current one. Might this be a contrast without parallel? Let's say that the RTJ era begat his designs. Can we say the same thing about minimalism from 1990 to 2010? I don't think so. The USA continued to grow during that era, yet a maximalist or minimalist debate happened for the first time.
All right, bear with me, a little stream of consciousness here. Minimalists from the golden age of design couldn't use big machines because they didn't have them. As big machines became commonplace, maximalist designers used them in order to completely reshape grounds not previously selected for their natural bent toward golf course design. (Aside: can we think of any properties that were reshaped by a designer that would have given a better golf course if left alone?) From 1970 to 1990, we have the maximalist-minimalist in Pete Dye, the anti RTJ, the guy who doesn't want to do what RTJ is doing. We get our Fazios, our RTJ 2.0s, our Hills' but we also get our cC, our Hanse, our Doak (I'm speaking purely from a USA perspective here, so feel free to add or subtract from overseas.) cC, Hanse, Doak could use the big machines to break the land, but they don't.
Here is an interesting question. Up the road from me, about 3 hours, is Turning Stone Casino. We have a Smith, an RTJ2 and a Fazio at this resort, all maximalists. Of the three, the Smith looks the most natural, the RTJ2 plays the toughest and the Fazio plays the most open and easy (ironically, it is the site of the PGA Tour event there.) The land is upstate New York farmland, not particularly inspiring at first glance. What would our minimalists have done with those pieces of property (say goodbye is not an option) had they been forced to build a course there? Would they have eschewed great land moving and found a way to create something tremendous?