I am guessing that IF the decision hasn't been made, then its bad news for whatever underdog wowed them in the presentation. The wow factor and details and good feelings may start to disappear and "logic" - i.e. - the top ranked firm or a consensus firm that no one really objects to - might come back to the forefront. In other words, the impulse buy factor goes away, and the power of the presentation is null and void, to a degree.
But, I also suspect that the decision has been made, if not last Friday, then a few days later after they sat down again, and one firm is sending in contracts and other fee proposals and conditions, while the others are in the dark, and will be told with the rest of the world. At least, that is the way it often happens in city jobs.
As to who interviewed first, there is always a lot of talk among firms as to whether its best to go first, last or middle. To the degree that the presentation and design sell the project more than any pre proposal politicking, it doesn't really matter. If TD goes first, the second presenter is compared to him and one is essentially out. That "winner" is then compared to the third guy, so two are out, and so on. The last guy only needs to beat whoever beat everyone else, in essence. Only in a few occaisons - and this may be one - does a committee get bowled over by more than one firm, and no matter how good, at some point, they have to like one above the others.
As to evaluating the proposals, Brad brings up a point - they are all evaluating from different perspectives. Probably most cannot evaluate a routing without fly throughs and the like, and maybe not even then. Besides, unlike here, they are probably inclined to believe any of the firms, with their worldwide reputations, can design a great golf course. Their preference should be and is based on who hit their "hot button" list the hardest.
Lastly, I still don't see the big whup about sending a future message. If the course is too tough, just fill in some of the bunkers and back tees and show a plan for wider fw cuts, to make it more playable. The only real design issue I see is that if the greens are really tough, those would be more expensive to rebuild, so I see flatter greens than you might expect for a championship venue. At the same time, the design wouldn't likely be aimed at the Tiger and Phil crowd, because I don't think they are really wanting to embarass whoever the equivalent of the Jamacian Bobsled Team might be.
Overall, there will certainly be some costs associated with the tournament that don't send any particular message to the golfing world. All the one time extra costs add up, but I doubt that any of the gca's design styles is going to adversely affect the cost as much as infrastructure, etc. And all may have to move a lot of earth because of the spectator requirements, etc.
In the end we have to remember that we may be the 1500 most interested bystanders out there.....