Interesting responses, especially that a number feel that going back to the original style buynkering would somehow take away the character of the course. In the end this was/is a maintenance driven step, often pushed by the greenkeepers. In Amsterdam no one puts aluminum window frames in the canal houses instead of the more maintenance intensive wooden window frames, they stick to the original.
Unfortunately as we speak still classic Colt/Simpson links courses are changing to revetting. Granville, a Colt course on the French coast is a good example, up until a few years ago all bunkers were still original sand faced, now they are all being reverted to revetted bunkers. Hayling in England is another example.
Maybe the reason for this push is something different. In my work I have noticed that the greenkeepers teams really enjoy building rivetted bunkers in the winter months, as a change to the grass mowing all year. It is also something they can do themselves in house with no outside help (building rivetted bunkers does not need big shaping skills).
Overal I think one has to take the discussion to the custodians of the club and ask them the question why they do not want the course to look and play like the designer Colt or Simpson wanted it to play? My experience is that most have never thought about it, and the longer they think about it the lesser qnswer they have to this question.
This worked in Holland where in the 1990's most of the Colt courses had changed their bunkers to grass faced (often on advice of Donald Steel). Now we are in a position where all Colt courses, except for Kennemer, have gone back to the original Colt snad face bunkers. So with some education, a good discussion, showing examples of succesful restorations of sand face bunkers one can convince people to back to the original state....
Finally, one of the other things that I would like about going back to sand faced bunkers is that you would have many more possible lies in a sand face bunker, making it a much more interesting and multi dimensional hazard that the rivetted pot bunker.