Kalen - the US Open is a good example/metaphor.
On the one hand: those who never miss a shot will almost never have to "recover", and with that perhaps goes some of the charms of some great wide old courses and several modern courses where the architects have garnered much praise for the variety of recovery options and thus the playability of the course for a wide range of golfers.
On the other: take said golfers, those who never miss a shot, and put them a course like (the often cited) Firestone or the traditionally narrowed and high-roughed US Open set-up, and the only thing you'll be testing is their ability to stay awake and not drop dead from boredom. Such a golf course to the machine like player would ask of them nothing.
But on The Old Course and the moderns like Sand Hills and Pacific, those machine like players would be engaged in finding the right lines for them, i.e. from the flat-bellied titanium basher who hits it 340 yards to the broken down iconoclast who hits his persimmon 240 to the once very active and athletic old woman who drives it 160 yards.
But, on yet another hand: would the game continue to hold any fascination and challenge for such golfers, even on great courses...such that even the best architecture becomes irrelevant?
And on the last hand I have: ah, but what about the greens?