It occurs to me that there might be a whole lot of generality and that might affect anyone's thoughts. Its not general, its hole by hole, not a general state of mind. And, as Tim N points out, if the gca had to make too many of those decisions, it was either too tough a site for great golf, or a bad routing on great land and Ian seems to have gotten the general sense it was a case of one of those things.
When they started clearing the topo for the 13th at the Quarry (you can see the finished product in a recent thread link) there was some real wild topo, both natural and leftover from mining ops. It looked great as was but was very, very steep in the fw area. In that case, there were no other real practical problems, and the Owner was a bit worried about the quirk, but willing to go with my judgement.
I noodled on keeping it as is.
Then I asked myself if there was any strategy at all in a fw that rock and rolled everywhere. Of course, a few golfers could bang for the green and risk getting in the big bank (which was there) in front of the green. Or, if they layed up short of that, no matter where they hit, they would face any number of lies, with about half of then involving picking a wedge of downhill terrain to an uphill green, not a real fun shot and one where the result was beyond their control, no matter how well they planned and executed their tee shot.
Or, with a little bit of work, I could create and upper and lower shelf, giving the golfers of all levels a choice of playing to the smaller upper pad, and seeing the green or playing to the wider lower pad and having an uphill blind shot from a rolling, but doable lie, both of which are a distinct disadvantage, but not a real penal one.
So, in that particular case, I found that working the contours (which were too steep for a fw) improved the golf at the expense of the terrain. I was very tempted to leave them as is,or soften them just a touch, but started considering the golf over the mantra of "using the natural terrain" and think I made the right decision, but it was a hard one.
So, the question to Sean or others is, would you have left that terrain in its quirky fashion, giving the golfers a fun look but perhaps a harder shot no matter what and no real options, or would you architect it up to give some strategy or choice?
(In the voice of Karl Malden....."What would you do? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?"