What an interesting question.
In my opinion, there're about a dozen different directions from which to come at this overall question of the "playability" of bunkering and the actual sand surfaces are only about half of them. The other half is the architecture.
One way I'd like to see some courses experiment with sand surfaces is to just make the sand surfaces of their bunkers at least five times more compacted---something like a sandy road?
You want to separate the men from the boys in bunker recovery? That would really do it.
If a lot of golf courses started to do that equipment would quickly follow. SWs would be produced with very little bounce---they'd have flanges like knives and that would really isolate and highlight skill.
EEEYAWH!!! It might even help get more golfers to avoid bunkers at all costs.
EEEYAWHEEEEEEE!