George,
I personally question Tom D's premise that Oakmont is out to break anyone's back. While I personally would prefer less rough (or even no rough, as an experiment), I believe the members at Oakmont believe they are in fact highlighting the architecture of the course by presenting it in its full difficulty. It's interesting to me to look at the demands of Oakmont relative to the demands of other championship-testing courses. Oakmont is not brutally long - many of the longer holes are significantly downhill, and conditions are kept universally fast, so there is maximum roll on drives (frequently seen as a good thing on here for many different reasons). Oakmont does not generally have brutally long carries to reach the fairways or greens, as some courses do. Oakmont does not rely on water hazards and other penalty strewn hazards (which other courses rely upon far too heavily, imho). Most of the holes actually allow run up approach shots, if one so desires.
Okay, I am with you so far. Sounds like it would be fun- I mean enjoyable- I mean entertaining. You know what I mean.
Oakmont combines 3 principal elements to create its challenge - brutal bunkering, heavy rough, and the best green complexes in the country (come on, let's stop kidding ourselves that Augusta's or #2's are even close.... 
). Of these, I personally only see heavy rough as back breaking; I'll leave it up to others to determine if that element of Oakmont's presentation is too much. The other two elements are primary components of top notch architecture, imho. Can't see where the lesser golfer isn't capable of handling these, as long as he is not overly obsessed with score. I'd sure hate to see someone argue for dumbing down Oakmont to help lesser golfers feel better about themselves - I'd rather see golfers accept the challenges presented and forget about their score.
I am with you on the discussion of the greens and the bunkers. I've no problem with brutal bunkering so long as there is usually a way to avoid the bunkers (at a cost, of course.) Generally I've got no problem with fast greens except that fast greens often lead to the dumbing down of green contours, like the USGA's plan for a few of the greens at Merion. When it comes to choosing great greens or fast greens, I go with great greens. But you say Oakmont has great greens and I assume they aren't messing with them, so I am all with you even with really fast greens.
But where I might lose you is with the brutal rough. I don't mind brutal rough on courses with wide fairways-- wide wide fairways-- because brutal rough can serve the same purpose as brutal bunkers, but like brutal bunkers it only works well if the golfer generally has the option to playing away from it. This isn't the case if the fairways are narrow and the rough brutal. So which is Oakmont? If the fairways are narrow and the rough brutal, then how on earth could brutal rough highlight the architecture? Or how does the club think it does?
Should we criticise clubs for not maintaining what they have? I don't know, I take each case as individual examples, and I know very little about the specifics of each to say with any sort of authority that clubs are not doing their job as protectors. Heck, I'd lay a lot more blame on the USGA & R&A for that.
I would lay most the blame with the USGA, but there is plenty of blame to go around, so I say slam them all, the USGA, the R&A, and all the courses who have followed their lead. It is pretty much the same group of people anyway.
Seriously, I am not sure that slam is the right word, but let's say there is a course using brutal rough and narrow fairways in an attempt to "highlight the architecture" but the result is that they are burying the architecture under brutal rough, to the extent that even the great greens are less great. (Great greens are only great to the extent that they work with the options presented on approach, and those options are all gone if there are narrow fairways surrounded by brutal rough.) Isn't that course begging for a constructive critique about how they have rendered a great course less good and that they ought to change direction?
I know you and Tom P have big problems, but I think he is right on the money with his question to Sean Arble about Fun Factor and scoring.
Tom who? I don't know what you mean?
I can tell you that for me scoring has absolutely nothing to do with how much (or how little) I enjoy a course. I haven't wanted to derail the discussion but to me the best and most helpful guideline for great architecture is derived from something Macdonald wrote (big surprise, I know.)
Golf courses should be designed, built and maintained for match play and match play only. They should never, ever, ever be designed, built, or maintained for stroke play.
This would relegate much of this garbage about whether courses are tough enough to challenge the best golfers to where such discussions really belong. In the dust bin.
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John,
Pinehurst No. 2 is one of the courses on the list that think I would love. Except if they set it up like they did at the last open there. That was a joke and a travesty, and is a good example of the kind of thing I am talking about. I have mixed feelings about the Ocean Course at Kiawah and would probably have to see it in person to have a good sense of it.
As for your statement about "70 good shots" I have trouble connecting that to anything to do with great architecture and reference you to my last comments to George above.