Pat - Don't you think that architecture changed in the 20th century when architects stopped trying to replicate UK courses and began creating "American" courses for golfers who had never seen a links course? Tom Paul's assumption that the move away from trying to create the look & feel of the UK links courses with the introduction of landscape architecture may be spot on. To the average American golfer there is nothing attractive about a links course. But, turn a course into a park with green grass, flowers, and landscaping... now you've got something they will notice!
Once equipment was introduced that allowed courses to be built on virtually any terrain imaginable the game was on. Now, anyone with enough money could have a course and there were "architects" standing ready to build them... for a price. A mass market was born. Thus began the escalating spiral of costs and the exchange of true golf design with a desire for "beauty" at any price.
Go back and look at some of the old ads and promotional brochures for the courses built during the 50's and 60's. They don't talk about the quality of the strategy built into the course or how great they will test one's game, they talk about how beautiful the courses are... especially if they offer a few water features... and how anyone at any skill level can enjoy them.
For an American course to be considered to have "great" archtecture it seems to me that many still require it to match itself against the original UK courses, or those that copy the features found on the UK courses (like NGLA). How many great design concepts are original to this country?