Brian:
I fully agree with you on the routing. The ease of the walk and the pacing of the round is excellent. Country is a "big" course that covers a lot of land but Flynn created a very efficient routing with very short green to tee walks. You move up and down the elevation on the property a number of times but the walk never seems tiring.
In terms of comparisons to other nearby courses, Canterbury is much more cramped. Herbert Strong had a much smaller piece of land which in some respects makes its design even more impressive. For me, and obviously I'm biased, I think that Country is the overall better course in terms of design, routing and strategic use of hazards. That said, I think Canterbury's greens are better (although not in Brookside's class; they have the best greens in Ohio IMHO). Kirtland is a great course with two very different nines. I love the back nine although, as you mention, with the crappy weather we have in NE Ohio, the back nine at Kirtland is often a quagmire.
It is amazing how much more rain we get in Cleveland than Akron and Canton get and they are only 40 or so miles apart. This summer, we have had three separate 24 rain totals at Country of over 3" with one of those over 4". That is unheard of, even for us Clevelanders. As a result, we've had our first and ninth holes almost fully underwater except for the greens, thankfully. The course is so much better and more interesting/challenging when it is firm but sadly we don't get many stretches of those conditions here.