Sean,
Hmm, I bet most of the architects on here would say we invest plenty of time on bunker placement!
For a lot of reasons - cost, design theory, aesthetics (courses like Purgatory are neat, but were unique.....with the big money of the last 20 years, too many are over bunkered and thus less unique.......) etc. we do try to keep bunkering to the absolute minimum needed. Of course, limited, or absolute minimum are subjective and subject to debate.
I guess I do represent the Owner POV in my posts. I rarely get the freedom of a well funded Owner, willing to do anything. Most would say don't build a bunker that purposely catches bad shots of poor players, and further adds to maintenance and slows down the slowest players, so it is always a struggle to get those kinds of bunkers in there. That is balanced by the fact that the poor golfers pay the same greens fees, and feel they deserve to hit in a few bunkers, too! And actually, what they deserve is to just barely miss a few bunkers. Green bunkers affect everyone, so those rarely get cut.
I have always worked on the premise that a bunker ought to serve multiple functions to be cost justified, including strategy, punishment, safety bunkers, save bunkers, target/aiming bunkers, and of course good looks. But, I and most definitely figure scattering bunkers around in low play areas mostly for looks, and somewhat to challenge poor players do remain a low priority investment.
You say there is no landing zone, and yes, people do miss everywhere. I have seen plots of where balls land, and there is a pattern, even if up to 23% of tee shots do get topped and go less than 100 yards. By the top shot bunker theory, should we have bunkers 70 yards off line as well as 100 yards off the tee? Or do we plan around challenging and suggesting good shots over punishing bad ones?
I have written this before, but so many bunkers get removed for seeing too little play or seeing too much, at least in someone's opinion (like a bunker front right of a green at a club where the greens chair (or his wife) tends to hit weak fades.....) Determining just what the "right" amount of action a bunker gets is an unsolved mystery a few hundred years into the profession of golf course design, I guess.
I have also written this before, but it is much cheaper to adjust multiple tees than build bunkers all over the place, since you need to build a certain amount of tee space anyway. Some artful combo of both is usually the order of the day.
Cheers.