Shivas:
In my opinion, it probably isn't that worthwhile to get into things like 60/40 or 50/50--at least not in the mind and vision of an architect or designer! And certainly not in the context of all players or even all players of a particular level!
The thing for a designer/architect to do is to offer architecture that produces alternatives that may make any player wrestle with the choices he has available to him. And available to him is important because options that don't function--that aren't readily used or seriously considered, in other words, are not good options!
You speak of things in your post like "a coin toss" or that the "WRONG option has the most appeal to the eye". But whose to say that the options are a "coin toss" and whose to say which is the "WRONG option" or which option has the most appeal to the eye"? Options are predicated not exactly on right or wrong but on Temptation! And temptation is always in the make-up and decision making processes of the player, not the architect or even really the course!
These things are not so much for the architect to say, in my opinion! It's only for the architect to make available as many options to as many players as possible and let them choose for themselves. Who thinks which option is wrong or right or the least appealing or most appealing should not be of much consequence to an architect! Ideally if he can create something where a number of players would disagree about an option being right or wrong, the better the hole might be.
It always seems to come up in these discussions but Riviera's #10 seems to be the best example to make this fundamental architectural point.
GeoffShac has a way of explaining real tournament situations and what they mean in the context of architecture and its quality or lack of it, and in 1998 three players in the final group in the LA Open played #10 in vastly different ways and starkly different apparent risk/reward equations!
But somehow the genius of Geo. Thomas's #10 design induced them to do that. Three players playing a hole that differently is rare in Tour tournament golf. It's rare that three starkly different options would even exist on most holes for the Tour player much less be used differently by three players in a final group in a Tour pro tournament!
So it's really how much the designer might be able to put in the mind of any player to make him wrestle with his choices. That can create the element of indecision (something that's never good in golf) and that's ultimately where the architect and his golf course wins over a player--or at least it's how he can test a player best! It's not so much if the architect or course can test or defeat the player by penalizing him in a single and obvious one dimensional demand shot situation that has no other available choice! It's for the architect and course to induce the player to misunderstand and misapply his temptation or not, to defeat himself that way or to cleverly succeed that way himself.
To me it's not so much what the architecture does to the shot the player selects, it what the architecture does to the player to make him select any shot in the first place.
Strategy should never be the architect's or even the golf course's. Strategy should be the player's alone. Most good courses offer a lot of this, but not always, or not everywhere! But it's a good thing to offer the player these choices to wrestle with even before a club comes out of the bag!
And an "ideal maintenance meld" simply turns up by maintenance practices a player's awareness of all the available choices a design can offer him.