I don't know that I'd agree with where this is going. I think "absolutely horrible site" and difficult site are completely different things. When I think of the mountainous sites that some of the courses being mentioned were built from, I think of the difficult category, but at least then with some effort and possibly earth moving a great course can result. An absolutely horrible site to me is a completely flat cornfield devoid of any natural landforms or trees. I know some of you love these sites due to them being naturally windy, but personally I get wary if all I see on the way to a course are cornfields.
I haven't seen a course I liked come from one of these sites yet. The Brassie in Chesterton, IN is one that comes to mind. It looks like the design consisted of digging some ponds and bunkers and using the fill to create artificial mounds around them and to build up parts of the greens. Short of moving a lot of earth to make things more interesting, what could the architect really do?