I am not a big fan of rear bunkers. Either they are elevated above the putting surface, and I don't think that shot works too well, or they're below it, and thus blind, which is rather unkind. I'm not keen on the framing effect that elevated rear bunkers can give - I prefer golfers to have fewer visual crutches of this kind. They're also, as Paul as highlighted, mostly eye candy as the vast majority of players very rarely overshoot the green.
On the other hand, I did a piece in the current GCA with Rees Jones on what a championship course should look like today, and he made the (I thought rather insightful) point that rear pins are typically more challenging for today's pros because they impose a need to control spin more effectively. And, if as is often the case, they're expecting the ball to suck back on landing, even more so. And, naturally, rear bunkering can play a role in this.
One of my few quibbles with Dr MacKenzie's work is a perception that he overbunkered at times, and that he was overly fond of using sand for eye candy purposes. Mr Colt, by contrast, very rarely deployed rear bunkers, though this may well have been related to his fondness for elevated greens. I remember the first time I visited Tandridge with Frank Pont -- we spent a while discussing how unusual Colt's use of rear bunkers there was, though it's true he used a lot more bunkers period at Tandridge than was normal for him, to the extent that, although there is no evidence to suggest it is possible, I still wonder whether MacKenzie had a hand in that course.