I recall eagerly going to my first Colonial NIT when I moved here in May 1984 from Chicago. I thought it was a bit disappointing from the architecture POV, having seen, played and worked on many of Chicago's best clubs. Mostly, a nice old traditional course on flat ground, but hard to overcome the topography and the features were pretty repetitious, i.e. most greens with bunker right, bunker left. And, unlike most, I didn't even mind the sounds of the rail yards across the creek (with trains being a second love after golf and maybe hockey.....)
Actually, we helped them overcome some of the drainage problems caused by flat ground, re-grading most fw from their 0% slope (not kidding) to a maximum of 2%. (it was in the design brief...."Colonial is a flat course and no excessive contours should be added") I was called on a late Friday night to be there the first thing next morning because one of the members thought a grade in no. 3 fw exceeded 2%. Turns out one area of it needed to be lowered .1 ft. to comply. I haven't kept track lately, but for many years after our work the only tournament time lost to weather was the hours it rained, whereas before, every rain put the course out of play for a long time.
I know this latest iteration with Hanse also included some well known local engineers to address moving floodwaters out more quickly, whereas my work was just getting the course to drain the everyday rain.
Like Lou, I think their rankings in the lower end of the top 100 is probably good. I note it dropped from the perennial top spot in the Dallas Morning News rankings years ago, and is now 7, so locals and national rankings agree it isn't as good overall as the newer courses high end clubs in Texas, like DN, Boot Ranch, Whispering Pines and others. Really, as historic as guys like Bredemus and even Maxwell were, most of the architecture in the south paled to what was going on in NY area, the NE, and even Midwest (with Langford, etc.) All IMHO, of course.