Patrick -
I don't know the answer, but I think your concluding sentence is very telling and relevant to the discussion, i.e. What's a reasonable expectation for the playing surfaces given normal weather conditions?" [bold, mine].
You did not ask the question in terms of given "budgetary constraints" or the anticipated "target market" a differing "ethos of the game" or factoring in "modern-day golfers' expectations" -- all of which I'd suggest are just as realistic factors vis-a-vis playing surfaces as your "weather conditions".
My own approach to an ideal maintenance meld is influenced by such other factors as Peter mentions. Probably why I didn't respond to Pat's other thread is because the initial golfer's criticism of the conditioning is so commonplace. We hear comments like this every day year after year. We lose customers and repeat business all the time to other courses that privately I might call "grass factories" with conditioning for the "chlorophyll addicts." There can be no denying the fact that some golfers prefer lush, green, overwatered, over fertilized, courses. They just do and nothing will convince them otherwise. It's what they know and expect (in the USA).
As I've said many times before, our approach to conditioning is based more on (paraphrasing the Old Doc) "providing the most pleasurable excitement for the greatest number of golfers" than providing some ideal conditioning standard for out sand based turf. Our course plays beautifully fast and firm with full pallet of colors and, depending on weather, we play this way for about half the year: late fall, winter, early spring. However, many of our golfers don't embrace this conditioning as ideal even if it seems to me to better suit their games or provide a more interesting version of the game. It's also a fact that if we have a mild winter with lots of play, there is a tremendous amount of wear and tear to the turf (yes, we allow carts). So, when spring comes around and we can grow grass and repair the turf, we do. The chlorophyll addicts are ecstatic and we get the most complements on the conditioning. What do we say to them? "You don't know what you're talking about or understand proper golf?" That doesn't go down very well because these are the same guys who have played all winter on what many of us would call ideal playing surfaces. To them the lack of irrigation and growing, healthy grass is just conditioning compromised by the season and weather.
So, if you are in charge of running a golf business and you need these guys to enjoy their golf and keep giving you their business, what do you do? Tell them to go someplace else because they don't get it? Set up your course conditioning to some ideal standard for enlightened golfers and ignore the wishes of, in my view, a majority of your customers? Let me assure you these golfers will vote with their wallets and play their golf where their buddies play and where they perceive they get biggest bang for their buck. Or do you compromise, as you must with the weather, and try to provide the best conditions for the greatest number of golfers in your area or market? And what do you do when there are more courses than there are golfers to fill them, as seems to be the case with many regions in the US, home to approximately half the golf courses on Earth?
Theoretical discussions about ideal maintenance melds are fine and I'm all for them. I personally agree with many of the views in this DG and enjoy different versions of the game. When I am asked what are my favorite courses, I rattle off a modest list of the usual suspects, almost always links or firm and fast courses that are more difficult or challenging than my own. These are courses that are walkable and don't get beat up by golf carts. That's just my preference and a product of my interest in architecture, traveling and seeing different versions of the game. Since I do enjoy different styles of golf, I also keep in mind there are many ways to enjoy the game and an infinite amount of personal preferences in which to do so.