Brent,
Good question and one Melvyn seems to either fail to appreciate, or simply desire that nothing ever changes.
My oldest played US courses are Cape Arundel and NGLA, and a tour of Myopia Hunt, all early 1900's. They look primitive in some ways, and really cool in others. I do treasure the times I get to see these places, but probably consider them as much museum pieces as great architecture (NGLA perhaps excepted) I mean, I like and appreciate the old features of the other two, and see some cool stuff (like tiered greens, that always struck me as more modern ideas, but there they are!)
MHM seems to rant about a mix of things, the early architects, carts, walking, in a strong belief we should get closer to Scotland's roots. Whether or not that is practical in the vastly different climates of the US, and the Golden Age and other designers have continued to adapt, I don't think it was possible, or given human nature (as well as nature nature) that the game or architecture EVER would have just started and not evolved somehow.
Basically, no one thinks golf (or anything) is absolutely perfect right out of the box, and nothing can't stand a "wee bit of improvement". Take a few hundred years of wee improvements, and voila, you have modern golf. Some items are just as much an experiment with no real end in mind as early architectural features, but as always time will tell.