I always liked Tom Watson's comment that if a course needed to be maintained well to play well, it was a poor design. I am not quite sure that I can come up with examples of say, a JN or Faz course that couldn't play reasonably with lesser degrees of maintenance right off the bat, so the premise of this thread is probably too generalized. In fact, in one way, it reminds me of the recent election where both sides used sound bites not really for discussion points, but to "prove" their POV, at least to themselves. In this case, its example No. 3650 of "Minimalism is better" and aha moment......
I agree with the Mike's that some 1990's courses (including some of mine) had some high maintenance built in. Mow time is increased with mounds, as well as water time and use.
Other factors include losing some of the "maintenance first" design ideas that the RTJ era guys almost never missed, to create more "wow" in the designs, including NEVER letting any uphill water flow into the bunkers or on to greens. Also they rarely used basins except where they were absolutely required to block off large flows. They tend to add maintenance. That said, I still favor sort of a middle ground between no basins and those used to limit flows to about 300 feet, because long swales are built in wet spots too.
Short version, I took the original post to mean the mounding typically used in the 1990's and I agree. Certainly, less contour means easier, faster mowing, although some of my super friends don't see as measureable difference as you might expect. Of course, its hard to come by time and motion studies for mowing, despite many people claiming to do them. It always seems that the results are due in "next month." The distinction point is when their employees actually have to white knuckle it and fear for their life when mowing mounds.
If we were talking bunkers and edges, I presume that the smooth edge Augusta bunkers are probably a lot less intensive (by need, if not by actual choice) than the frilly edge bunkers. However, you could argue that reducing contouring offsets the total maintenance cost of the frilly edge bunkers.