TEPaul,
You probably get the same enjoyment from your golf as your dad because you are an accomplished player, and your dad mostly likely was no slouch either. But what about the 25 handicap hack? That's why I don't have much of a problem with stuff like metal woods, cavity back irons, etc. I'd rather have seen some standards for size put in place but its too late for that now. Making it easier to hit the ball a little better, increase the chance of getting it up in the air, those are good things for the hackers. Personally I like metal woods for the ease of maintenance compared to persimmon, no worries about keeping them dry to avoid cracking and swelling.
What I don't get is the ball. How does it help Joe Hacker if you can give him a ball that lets him hit it 10% further, only to build new back tees, and move his regular tees back to where the back tees used to be? You'd give him a course that's 10% longer, but he'd only be getting that extra distance on the shots he hits solidly. Good players get the extra distance every time. It just increases the gap between good players and poor players.
Game improvement clubs should at worst benefit both equally, and at best help those with worse contact more (ignoring COR, another mistake the USGA made that's too late to rectify)