David,
The leave behind strategy book has been discussed here. It has been done, and still it gets ignored.
If I get called back to a course, its usually to take out bunkers or make it easier, hardly ever to rethink strategy. Once the course is in operation - save a few that really are owned by guys who love golf - there really isn't a lot of going back to tweak. I have written emails to some of my best courses (including the Quarry last week) with some suggestions. I will pass on Ken Moun's real life expericne with the tees at Firekeeper.
I don't think I will get much traction mostly because they won't spend money (even to reprint scorecards, as minor as that seems) or close parts of the course to achieve some golden ideal their gca wants to pass on. It does happen, but its rare for those kinds of reasons.
Add in that so many club pros and supers like to tinker a bit with design - 40 of my 50 courses probably have had the nines reversed by the pro - and things just happen.
Jeff, sounds like you should reverse the nines yourself so they end up the way you want.
An interesting by product of GCA.com is that when you architects post here about your courses, like Randy Thompson is doing on his course in Chile, those posts become part of the archive for future reference.
Tom, for those of us trying to maintain a handicap in the US of A, the USGA slope/rating formulas kind of tie us to a set of tees for each round, as I know you know. The game of trying to improve your handicap is fun, after all, so I don't want to overstate this point.
Going back to Pat's original point, and tying that back to a point you've made Tom in the past, about how if a player complains they can't hit driver-hybrid and score on his course, he's done his job, if players have the freedom to pick their tees, how many are going to do so to bring the strategy into play versus taking the strategy out of play, especially when playing stroke play?
Most of the choices we make on course are choices on how to beat the course. If we play by Hoyle, the course is defined tee box to hole. The only choice you get on where to tee off is between the markers, two lengths back.
Two things I'd like to see more of: USGA ratings for men from forward tees, and, a little more out there, USGA ratings by hole, so you could build a slope and rating for each round if you do move around.
Tom, I do love your attitude. If more people shared it golf as experienced in the US would be very different. Jeff, I love the way you challenge assumptions in the name of innovation, like the split tees. That's really commendable.