I agree with TD on this one - planning on paper, while necessary, tends to or can lead to great looking holes from the airplane that don't work at all on the ground. When I had young guys coming in to the office, that was a very hard thing to teach them.
I recall getting scolded at Killian and Nugent for apparently sleeping on the job, but I was just laying my head on the table to stare up the centerline of a golf hole plan I had drawn to better envision it. With computers and 3D you can do it better, and get it closer, but the field is the final test. I also recall an employee of mine blaming the software for some pimply looking mounds and blind greens, until I showed him it wasn't the software output, but his input. He tended to draw pimply mounds and when we extended his contours from 3:1 to 6:1 the software did just fine!
Back on topic, I suspect that there are many great holes that look average from the air. For instance, any hole that relies on ground slope for its challenge over the more visible bunkers. Something like the 8th at Prairie Dunes, for example, but I am certain there are many, many more.
I also look out of airplane windows and have learned a lot, BTW. One thing I noticed flying into Long Island years ago was how much depth bunkers had from front to back, and how simple many front edges were on those older, classic courses. Drawing on plan, many gca's draw pretty small bunkers with squiggly shapes. In the fiedl, all those do is turn out to be partially blind, looking like thre bunkers instead of one.