Bogey - I'm not sure I can explain myself well, but I think 'aesthetics' means more to us than we often realize, and I believe rightly so. Aesthetics should mean something, and do.
I don't mean eye candy, or even period-correct bunker shapes. What I mean is this: we all know that every course we play has been 'planned' for us by an architect. (I use the word planned instead of 'created' to get away from the earth moving-minimalist distinction). And it has been planned so as to provide us with an interesting and fulfilling experience. The interest and fulfilment can come about both through challenges and choices we're presented with and/or through the appearance of challenges and choices.
(To use old language that I've used before: the great architects can give rabbits a chance to feel good about themselves and to compete against tigers while not constantly reminding them that they are rabbits, i.e. without them noticing that the challenges they are asked to surmount aren't all that challenging.)
And so this appearance of challenges - what I think is what, in part, you might be referring to when you think you're being 'duped' -- is what I'm calling the 'aesthetics' of a course, i.e. those visual, often naturally appearing (though of course planned) features and hazards that enrich the experience of playing a round of golf, making it interesting and fulfilling. Sean and Brett's references to 'conditioning' fall into this for me, as does Sam's mention of centre-line bunkers.
I sometimes play a newish public course, for example, where the architect has paid homage to Dr Mac and Crystal Downs with his version of the 3 Sisters, three bunkers side by side crossing straight across the fairway. I think he's done it well - the way the land rises beyond them helps make it feel as if these bunkers/sand could have been there 'naturally', and they look good and they seem daunting when you step up to the tee, and you're happy when you try to go over them and clear them....in short, they add interest and fulfillment, but they are almost entirely 'aesthetic' (in the sense that I'm using the word) because the truth is only my very worst drive would fail to clear those buunkers, and indeed I've never failed to clear them. Nothetheless, they have been planned to enrich my experience, and they succeed.
All of which is to say, Boges, that we're not often being duped even when later we think we're being duped, because with good architects there is usually a there there, even when nothign is actually there.
Peter