I liked the very old system.
Course was rated, you took the best 10 of your 20 scores, looked it up your total on a chart and voila... your handicap.
Handicaps are merely around so folks can compete fairly.
Tony
I would say that handicaps allow players to compete unfairly. How is giving strokes to someone that is not as good as you fair? Handicaps are around to make games more competitive.
I would take the opposite view of Tom and say handicaps really tend to make courses harder because an archie/green committee can always say that the marker has a shot and can still earn a net 4 if he plays smartly.
Like Jason above mentioned, I would much prefer the bogey system brought back for handicap players and par used only for expert players - as it was meant to be originally. I think handicxapping would be far easier to properly handicap people if the two groups never competed against each other. The wider the handicap gap, the less accurate handicapping is.
Ciao