I have never understood why this topic comes up so frequently whenever golf is discussed. Playing from the wrong tees gets blamed for slow play, lack of fun, all sorts of architectural mischief....next it'll be the cause of the financial collapse (too much debt from courses costing more to build those extra sets of tees!)
So long as someone isn't impeding others' enjoyment of the course, who cares what tees they play from? Yeah, it sucks if you see someone struggling and you know they'd probably enjoy it more if they could overcome their aversion to moving up, but in the end that's their problem, not mine.
Everyone's game is unique, and some people's games aren't going to be affected a whole lot by changing tees. Handicap itself is a poor way to measure where you should be hitting from - as we all know golf is a wonderful game because there are so many different ways to suck! Lack of distance is not even a leading cause of why people are stuck in the 20+ handicap range, IMHO. I've played with some old farts who I can outdrive with a 7 iron who shoot near par on courses in the 6600-6700 yard range because they make every shot count.
As for crazy ideas like 36 5 irons is the proper length, what the heck does the length of one's 5 iron have to do with the length of course they should be playing? Let's say you hit it 190, there are a lot of ways to create a 6800 yard course, if its a hilly windy site, narrow with lots of trouble and par 70 then its going to be all pretty much any golfer can handle. If its wide open, F&F, and at elevation then 6800 could almost be the women's tees. I think my rule of "if you find yourself hitting mostly fairway woods to par 4s move up, if you find yourself hitting mostly wedges move back" makes more sense as far as taking the course itself into account, though I guess it suffers from not being something you can use before you play a course for the first time.