Jeff,
While I agree that in some cases the green surface you describe might be interesting, it’s really hard to build a functioning green like that with local materials. I’m convinced that some of the most interesting greens Perry Maxwell built were as much about functioning surface drainage as strategy as he was working in mud on many of his courses. He had to find a way for those greens to be viable pre-USGA recommendations.
As soon as you design a green that must function primarily on infiltration and internal drainage, you’ve added tremendous cost to any project. And while I know that is now the standard, greens can be built with local materials in many cases if the builders and maintainers take on an attitude of “how do we make this work”.
Heavy play, very heavy soils, maybe it can’t be done, but in a lot of cases it can work but you have to find clients and turf managers willing to look at it differently.
I think that you're right re: Perry Maxwell. He supposedly designed many if not most of the greens on the MacKenzie planned Ohio State University Scarlet Course (1938). From first-person accounts, the push-up greens were built on the clay material dug out from the creek that bisects the property to create the irrigation lake. All but #17 which Weiskopf modified circa 1970 were originals up until the Nicklaus renovation around 2005.
The greens generally had considerable back to front slope. In my seven years there, I've seen them in very poor condition to acceptable for tournament play (including the NCAA Div. 1 finals). They typically surfaced drained fast, and could be extremely firm. Once, after a torrential half-hour summer rain followed by direct sun and high heat and humidity, the low points burned out and it took months to regenerate the grass (some areas were re-sodded, as I recall).
As to the thread's thesis, we've hashed this out here numerous times. Speaking primarily from a U.S. perspective- there seem to be a fair number of these "BAM" facilities in the UK- the conundrum is finding affordable land near golf population centers that can support the capitalization and operations of such a facility. Texas is known to be a relatively low-cost state and the new PGA courses being built north of Dallas are on land priced at $160k per acre.
Irrigation is a necessity in many parts of the country and that too is very expensive ($500k-$1.5+ Million) plus the cost of water if it has to be purchased. And those dreaded carts which golfers seem to require don't glide on dirt, so add another $500k-$1.5+ Million for paths. I guess you can gouge some pits and find local sand, but that too typically relegates the course to the dollars per round/trunk slammer segment with the attendant effects on revenues and the bottom line.
Labor is the highest operating component- not sure that sheep and cattle would do well here, then add chemicals, insurance, regulatory costs, replacement reserves, taxes, etc. and "BAM" becomes a highly relative term.