For any such holes built in the past say 20 years or so, how many were really designed to be such, versus just having the choice forced on the architect?
A course here in town called Brown Deer that was originally a 9 hole housing development driven course was remodeled and expanded to 18 holes. There were two "problem" holes on the original nine that were doglegs around housing that weren't good designs in the mid 80s but were terrible with today's equipment creating long carries off the driver for anyone with a speck of athletic ability. To solve them, the first and second holes were combined to create a short par 5 of about 480 yards that doglegs right around a lake (mid to short iron for a good player, torture for the water fearing and slicing hacker, but whatever...at least they were smart enough to make this #10 and not leave it as #1) The old 5th, a 310 yard uphill hole that doglegged 90* right at about the 210 mark, was split into a strange but wicked 270 yard ultra-steep par 4, and a tiny par 3 that used the green of the former hole, that's 90 yards from the regular tees and 110 from the tips.
Every time I play that hole, I think of the missed opportunities to have done something interesting there. True, it saved money to reuse the existing green as-is, but if they just spent $2.95 million on the fancy new clubhouse instead of $3 million, they could have redone the green with some dramatic contours, a fallaway or deep bunker on one side. Or just made the green more "postage stamp" in size. Something, anything, to keep it from being one of the most boring par 3s I've ever played. That's the danger with the really short holes in my mind -- if they don't offer something of interest, they stand out too much in a negative way.
Really a shame too. If they'd either made that hole more interesting, or built 10 new holes instead of 9, the overall course would be rated more highly in my mind because the new nine is pretty good, and the remodeling otherwise made the most of the pre-existing nine.