Sean,
I agree that minimalism cannot really be called elitist. There is simply no connection, even if I contend that from time to time, it may be the wrong approach for a given project.
As to wing bunkers, I think Colt called them exactly that and wrote about their virtues. If Ross says no matter where you put a bunker, its the golfers job to avoid it, I suspect any bunker within a hole corridor will induce strategy for someone. As to choices for the sake of choices, I have asked that question before - why would a gca (esp on a budget) waste time creating bad choices, or even neutral ones, or even ones that might be experienced only by the 0.0012% of top players, and while I have never thought of it, the bottom 0.0012% of players?
While making courses more playable for other than accomplished white males has been a goal of design for quite some time for most, that is not really my argument in whole. Statistically, flanking hazards catch more missed shots of good players than carry hazards because good players rarely hit even a bit fat. At the same time, all players miss left to right at similar rates on long shots. If we recognize this, why would we keep building carry hazards over and over again?
Of course, there is more and more to the equation, but at times, I still feel like many here would build a course for nostalgia reasons, rather than for the 21st century. There are some features that are timeless, to be sure, but others would seem to be natural casulties of progress (or if you prefer, change)