Ian,
That is why I joined my modest little club, to have fun with my kids. Not coincidentally, the course, built in 1925, is 5920 for men, and 5138 for women, using two sets of tees for the 9 holes. The course has 3 par 3's, playing from 125 to 210. There are 16 bunkers across the 9 holes.
My oldest, 10, has shot par on a couple of the holes already.
Most importantly, after school, he would call me as soon as the bus let him off to see if we could get to the course that evening. Obviously, he finds it fun.
With my younger son, 6, I incorporated this concept from the USGA, Kids Par
http://www.usga.org/handicapping/articles_resources/Golf-is-for-Kids-too!/The USGA recommends that the pro/course put this in place, but since we didn't have that, I just made a little cheat sheet of the recommended pars. When you are 6, getting a "par" on 450 yard "par 8" is really awesome, and somewhat challenging.
As for the numbers thing....as I have said before, people know how to compare numbers, so instead of bemoaning the fact they equate longer == better, come up with a different set of numbers so they can equate "more architectural quality" == better.
The Doak scale is a shorthand used on this board,
a lot. How about adopting that?
Or, maybe we should come up with the "GCA" rating, so people can look at two courses and say, "hmm, course A (7500 yard ball buster) is a GCA 3.5, but course B (5800 architectural gem) is a GCA 6.5. maybe I should go play course B to see why it's so highly rated".
Good restaurants chase Michelin stars and Zagat ratings. Get enough people to pay attention, good golf course will chase the "GCA" rating. Why? Because when people don't know how to evaluate the quality of things, they fall back on what they know how to compare: numbers.