Mark -
As you know, there was a time when course ratings were rare. (When they did sometimes appear back in the day, they were vehemently dismissed as a screwed up way of thinking about golf courses. I'm thinking of the Golden Age.) Notwithstanding that, people and magazines still somehow figured out which were the best courses. That's because during that long ago dystopia there were far more and far better magazine and book narratives on the specific pros and cons of individual golf courses. That's how most people learned about good courses. That led, in turn, to architects and commentators actually debating - out in the open in the mass media - different approaches to golf architecture. It was fascinating stuff. There is still much to be learned from those old discussions.
All of that is now gone from the golf mass media. I'd guess that the rise of course ratings had something to do with snuffing it out. Instead of talking about the merits of a course, our attention has shifted to where the course ranks. Which is all too often a way to express subjective preferences without having to justify those preferences.
I've always thought course ratings were pretty silly but basically innocuous, at least as conducted in modern golf mags. Now I'm not so sure about the innocuous part. I'm starting to wonder if ratings have a down side. They might be destructive of useful architectural debate.
Bob
P.S. A related thought is that the popularity of this website is to some extent attributable to the abandoment by the the major golf mags of discussions of golf architecture. We come here to get those sorts of discussions/debates, cuz you ain't going to find them in GD or Golf and certainly not on TV.