I think it's often invention mothered by necessity.
It sure comes in handy as a vehicle to get out of tight spots in a routing (i.e. the area between the train tracks and Golf House Road on below the clubhouse at Merion), and I've also seen it best utilized to do a switcheroo in terms of backtracking around other holes in a change of direction.
Also to provide a change of pace and more variety/mix of holes within the routing.
I am pretty sure that you were at an outing where we played our first round at one of two private courses before the featured resort course (I was the one whose Apex irons Mr. Dye lavished over). A heavy rain hit right after our round concluded while we were having drinks. Everyone I talked to during the social hour raved about the course. Several of us planned to go back out after the rain to play a few more holes.
That's when our fearless leader called for an impromptu "training" session and we all gathered in a circle around him. Naturally, he did the "training" which, surprisingly because there were a couple folks from the host course still around, it turned out to be a recitation of everything that he thought was wrong with the course. As I recall, I was the only one who spoke of the course's virtues, and out of the half-dozen or so players who planned to go back out, I was the only one to do so.
Our mentor's biggest objection and the only one I thought had any merit was what is being discussed in this thread. We rode that day and he was bothered that we passed on the way to the next tee a couple greens and some tees that we had already played or would later in the round. This didn't make a big impression on me and it didn't impact my evaluation of the course or enjoyment of the round. I've played the course three or four times since, each time walking with a caddie, and it is a pleasant walk.
Whatever disadvantages are created by this type of routing should be considered along with the advantages. I thought that the routing of the course as a whole was excellent from the standpoint of mixing up the holes and changing directions. The gaps between greens and tees were not excessive and I personally prefer wide views of the course than perfectly isolated hole corridors.
From my estimation, the subject course was at least a half-point better than its sister. But I knew from the training session and the subsequent discussions that it would be rated lower. And for a long time it has been in this magazine, but not in the competition's. Whether this was the result of parroting the leader or a "crossover" issue, I can only surmise.