Kyle,
Good Question. I for one think a course with a lot of shot and visual variety is a great one. Courses that challeng elite players (say, Firestone) but are repetitive and boring because they strictly measure the challenge and provide it hole after hole, not so much.
Of all the players a course can appeal to, I think its getting harder to cover the broad spectrum from beginner to tour player. I think a course should focus on some sub set of those players, whichever end it picks, or somewhere near the middle.
I have several courses out there that are considered great by average players and I am happy with that, rather than the idea that there are 30,000 miserable players/rounds, but if a tour pro came to play, he would be challenged.
However, for all but, and even for the Tour Pros, there is a subtle difference in the architecture of penalizing misses and encouraging a wide variety of "appropriate" shots for good players by bunker placement, contours, doglegs, green slopes, etc. And, in most cases, if you grow the rough on these courses, they can encourage shots and punish to the degree necessary to keep tourney scores as high as you want them.