Ally, I agree with several of your points, including the important one that the GB&I unit of Golf Course Histories need to do a comparo once the turf is all down.
Two things I note:
1) the front bunkers and hump seem to align (well, they may be off a micrometer here and there) as does the rear topline. So maybe what we see isn't distortion but reality?
2) the seeming discoloration of the green to the left of Strath bunker may actually be a changed slope. Pictures taken earlier, when the sod was completely stripped, show that area was being regraded. The size of the dirt mounds suggests that interpretation as well.
Wish they would share the actual plan; as long as they do not, we never will be able to get past speculation -- pics taken by amateurs plus technologies like this may be all you / we ever are 'given'. The interpretations of you professionals, as always, are especially valuable.