Rich -
That is indeed interesting. I've often thought that some courses could make themselves more "difficult" in a scoring sense by using a forward tee to reduce par on a tweener hole - i.e. use a forward tee on a hole that the back tees might have in the mid 300s, with the forward tee mid 200s & make it a brutal par 3. Similarly this could be done (& is done by the USGA) with higher 400s par 5s, making them par 4s. 'Course, this is all predicated on the golfer only caring about score. I think Tom Doak even mentions a similar approach by Rye, where it is easier to match par on the longer course, because it affords one the opportunity of a reachable par 5.
I would also be curious to know if anyone else used the method you cite.