Sean,
Personally, I do not like the style of bunkering from an aesthetic perspective. As regards a strategic perspective, I think there were more hits than misses as far as placement, but who likes the repetitiousness of being in a perfectly flat sand bottom at the base of a steep grass-faced bank all the time? The lack of variety of stance and contour is not at all appealing to me. However, there are many that love the concept. There is room in golf for a wide range of designs.
However, no matter if we like it or not, it is interesting to study and place in perspective along with the bifurcation that would take place within a few years towards a more natural looking design that was not so overtly man-made. Even this category has two distinct subsets. The first is using as much of the natural features in interesting ways and the second, where engineering was required for drainage, strategy and design interest, it was made to look natural. This, to me, is a higher art form than the more engineered look. Some architects just didn't go very far into naturalism, and avoided letting the site specific features dictate design and routing (in my mind, naturalism requires much more routing skill). While their courses can play great and offer lots of challenge, the architectural underpinnings aren't as sophisticated in my book, especially where templates were used.
I've long been in a minority (sometimes of one) on here for feeling this way about Raynor, Banks and to a much lesser extent, Macdonald. However, you think about it, the dynamics of change (of varying degrees) at the time is fascinating.