Tiger,
I don't like to paint with too broad a brush, but as discussed on GCA before, it seems the high level competitive players prefer courses that are straightforward throughout. Quirk = unpredictable. Therefore the tastes of professionals are often at odds with many of the opinions on this board. I've often thought they when they say a course is great or that they love it, it has very little to do with what we perceive as the quality of the architecture. Rather, it has more to do with how the course interfaces with the professional game.
Your particular question is drected at the broadcast crews for NBC/ABC. It stands to reason that this opinion dominates the broadcasts as well because they are predominantly former players. For the most part, those that aren't players (like Mike Tirico) have developed their knowledge of the game alongside their booth partners (Azinger, Strange, etc...).