Like Tom Doak states, Rye is a great example of evolution, a course where land was lost because of a road, but luckily new land became available as the sea receded. (Tom your best 4 are: 4,7,9 and 16?)
Royal County Down is another good example of a course getting much better in its early evoltion.
It does seem to me however, that many of the best GB&I links were drastically changed for the better, a long time ago (1920s/30s). And have remained relatively static since. So I believe those designs have withstood the test of time and should hopefully be kept close to that design.