I think one thing that many have touched on but not in any detail are the technical confines, golf related and non-golf related, that design and construction must work within. I will list a few from my experience.
Cart paths (already mentioned)
Drainage (already mentioned)
Risk management/safety
Bunker/green visibility
The risk management is a big one now in Australia (and no doubt everywhere else) and what people can see and what they can't has an impact on where everything goes.
We all know blind shots found in Scotland are unlikely to be repeated anywhere, but the general safety issues place great limitations on the design elements as does the promximity of greens to tees and everything to the dreaded housing developments!!!
Unfortunately a good spot for a tee may just be too close to a green for the insurers liking these days and the option is gone.
As an aside, what would happen to the playability of hundreds of new courses if golf carts were found to be carcinogenic and had to be benned from the earth? (we can only dream...) The majority of new developments would be rendered useless because it is simply not practical to walk an additional 2km from green to tee during a round...
The bunker placement and relative visibility is a big issue for me where the course is a members course.
If it is a resort course, so be it. People have paid good money to play there once and they deserve to see all the hazards that await them. SHOW ME THE BUNKERS!
(that said, personally, I loved playing with these hazards in Ireland)
If, however, it is a members course why the need to have flashes of sand everywhere indicating the trouble? What sort of club member can't remember where the bunkers/water hazards are after a single round? Forget about them. Place the bunkers below green level at the back and have the water running behind the first row of trees or behind the deep rough...please!
So many more options are available if the dumb golfer is not treated with such respect. Note, I said "dumb" not "bad" - there is a difference. If we were to treat dumb golfers with this respect all over the course, there would only be flat greens and straight holes...so why give them extra status by laying every possible hazard on the table straight up?
Make it more interesting and add more variety by ignoring these apparent design constraints when it suits.