People don't like it when a course setup exposes their weaknesses. Those who desire "fairness" are usually not the better players in the field. Golf is not about fairness or a level playing field, it is about finding a solution to an 18-hole puzzle with your talent and skills. Most of the complaints I've heard about course setup can be translated into "It's not fair that a better player has an advantage over me."
I stopped complaining about course setup when (1) I realized it did absolutely nothing for my game, and (2) it would give me an edge over anyone in the field who did complain (especially in match play). When I coached in college, much of the mental work I did with the guys centered around this issue. Like I touched on in the other thread, players lacking confidence or lesser-skilled players are usually the complainers, and it is a mental barrier that they have to break through to get to the next level.
In some of the USGA events I played in in the 90's, a few of us suspected that on several holes the USGA would overwater the front of the green and leave the back dry (I haven't seen this in more recent USGA events, however). So that when a pin was in the back of the green, a ball landing short would stick and a ball landing farther back would bounce over the green. I didn't think that was fair, although I never mentioned it to any tournament official. I just kept it inside and let it eat at me. And thinking about it only served to distract me from what I needed to do, and that was to come up with a different solution to the problem. But I kept on hitting my standard shot and not getting it close, and kept on complaining to myself, and shot myself right out of the tournament. What I should have done is hit a low skipper to get it close, but I wasn't confident enough in that shot at the time to play it.
What I'm saying is that the golfers who don't want adversity are the ones who usually complain. They want the course to be set up well for them, and they don't want to have to add shots to their bag to turn in a good score.
Look at Trevino at Augusta; he got it in his head early that the course didn't suit his game, then piled on the other off-the-course stuff with ANGC (he skipped the Masters at least once), and he basically gave himself almost no chance to win there. Nicklaus talked to him several times to try to change his attitude about it, but it didn't work. I guess it goes to show that even great players can fall into the complaining mode, and when they do they too can take themselves out of the tournament.