Joey,
If the architect designed these areas to be maintained in such a manner, so be it. Judging by the first pic, the green and tees is already walk mowed, so I cant imagine that they are REALLY concerned about a few extra dollars to maintain a designed area.
You can ALWAYS state that its little things like this add up...so does painting cups every day, edging curbs, blowing out bunkers, using kiln dried sand, spray hawking greens, ect. As long at there are not 18 of these areas on a course, just a few, you wont see the cost. An extra 15 minutes, 3 days a week to mow? There is always a little extra in the sprayer. One extra load in the topdresser? All to have a cool, designed feature as such? Youre making a maintain out of a mole hill.
The few extra dollars it costs to maintain is more than worth it to have a feature as such. Very cool when used in the appropriate areas.