John,
Probably too big a topic for most to grasp here. Not sure I do!
That said, I have always thought that we tend to look back and mentally compress an era. The Golden Age was almost 20 years, not some one time event. Maybe more. I have always counted Murfield (1892 version) as the first modern looking course (to my eye) extending it to 40 years, even if a few early US practitioners didn't try to emulate it.
The Victorian Age may have lasted 200 or so! And, as noted above, we may also try to simplify and symbolize the period with a few well known examples, but even if the first enlightened Golden Age archie did some swerves vs. straight lines, a dozen others we don't know, because they were unremarkable, kept on doing what they were doing, more interested in the check than in setting precedence.
As to your tear down and rebuild statement, that happened a lot, too. Merion moved from its first location, so did Northland in Duluth and many, many others, from their "golf course starter kits" and original locations.
Lastly, when did they know their Golden Age designs were "classics?" Or were those labeled much later?