Yeah John, you should know the terms! But, tongues is used to describe the grass noses that come down into a bunker to give it a free form shape. They were meant to mimic nature, and it seems to me that Mac and others kept experimenting with them, getting further from nature and more to stylized art. I think most gca's today have been quoted as saying they are mimicking MacKenzie bunkers, so the ideas have stuck.
I think its a great question to consider in modern design.
First, the maintenance is always tough, so are they worth it? Probably depends on course budget. They look great.
Second, with changes in bunker construction, specifically the use of fabric liners, how should they be dimensioned? Many gca's made the sand bays 16-20 foot wide to facilitate power rakes. Liners make these hand raking areas, which would generally allow us to narrow the sand portions.
Similarly, turf tongues had to have a similar width for machine mowing with conventional mowers (although there are some small, slow, mowers that can mow many steep and tight banks by backing up and down - and they are about six feet wide), or were reduced greatly in size to reduce hand weed whacking.
Generally, I think those trends might allow a general reduction in bunker size from the RTJ era as a way to minimize maintenance on both aspects. And I think that is a good thing. When bunkers were bigger for maintenance reasons, they often dominated the greens which IMHO should be the dominant visual in a composition in most cases.