No Mike Davis doesn't understand architecture better than Rees Jones, he just has a different take on it. Rees is a lighting rod on this site, if you put his name on Sand Hills people would say that it's the worst, contrived POS ever done. If you took his Open Dr. work and put the names Coore and Crenshaw on it people would say it's the greatest thing since the Reformation.
Sam, is that really true though...Bob Jones used to get little love here, but then he opened Chambers Bay, and the reaction was wonderful. And Jones said that when the owners came to him and said just have fun and if we get a US Open, then great, and if not no biggie, and left him to his own devices, he built a great course and Open venue. Too often, when people told him build a really hard course in order to draw an Open, they didn't get it...
I'd like to think that if Rees built a truly great course in the future that we all would praise it! I think we're a fair and intelligent enough group to see past the architect's name and assess the work. We did it with Chambers Bay. We also call a spade a spade and admit when say Nicklaus or other designers that aren't stars here do well and build a good course. Some of you, for example, are members at the Ritz Carleton. We also admit when architects we like don't quite reach the heights we hoped. For example, some here were only luke-warm on Bandon Trails. Usually we can't wait to praise C&C...but once the rest of us look past the noise of the inflated egos who try to dominate the conversation by sheer force of will, the rest of us are pretty observant and honest, yet not unfair.
I will agree with you Sam that some architects do get a little better treatment than others - not so much a "free pass," but a lot more forgiveness.
Now last night I thought carefully about the question I posed. I framed it as "does Davis understand architectural principles better..." Perhaps I might have specified "strategic architectural principle" and that might have honed the debate more accurately. So some of you may be right - the way I worded the question could still be interpreted as who's the better architect - well that's obviously Rees because he has built so many courses and Davis hasn't built any original designs, but tournament set-up is directly related to architecture and the architecture and set-up are intrinsically entwined at that point. Whatever you do to set up the course, you are doing some thing affect the way the player will attack the course, bringing some features into play one day, and others the next.
Now think about this - at a course with strategic options, the set-up can be more varied - and therefore interesting - and at a course with less strategy the options dwindle. In fact, you sometimes have to make radical changes to the set-up to make a bland course more interesting - like moving tees way up on par-4s or 5s to make them half-par holes.
Now look - at some courses, Rees gets a pretty free hand, more so if his dad designed the course. Jeff B. you make a good observation in your post, but I also stand by my belief that Rees's par-5s would be better if he gave us more half-par holes that tempt the player into going for it or not, rather than dictating that we play three center-line shots.