David,
There was a time when most archies designed from the main men's tees, not the championship tees. The problem was, if you were designing a housing course where the boundary hadn't been set, and used the main tee as the start of your centerline, you tended to lose the area behind it for the back tee. So, in many cases, designing at least the routing plan from the back tee was a necessity.
As to features, I think raters, reviewers, awarders and even golfers worry too much about what the good player will say about a new design, even though I see lots of evidence that most players eventually pick a course that doesn't beat them up, with design features they can negotiate without losing too many strokes or balls. Changing the design for the best attitude would help a lot. When I started in the biz in 1977, my bosses told me that there were already enough tournament and world class courses out there, and we weren't designing for those level players. But, over the years, I think we all got away from that, all wanting a top 100 or best new course, which you don't get without being bold.
In an offline exchange with Arthur Little and another gca, they agreed that it just might be time to eliminate the notion that a course can be all things to all people, and encourage leaving out those seldom used 7000+ tees altogether. It is a lot of golf course to build for about 50 players a year out of 30,000 total.
Sean,
One reason I posted the design goal was to show that adhering to classic principles as a main goal (as opposed to doing it because it makes sense for today's play) just isn't a valid criteria in most cases. I tend to design for those paying the bills now, and if a couple joins a club with the intent of enjoying golf, then its more a duty to design for the here and now than to design the way they did in the old days, at least regarding tees, since by and large, those poor attempts at forward tees weren't really all that well thought out.