Mark F. said, "It's a dangerous thing and probably why we see so many restorations that are not restorations."
I do not see too many restorations at all. (is this what you're saying, Mark? If so, I agree.) And I'm not speaking about my own work — I've never done a restoration by definition, nor would I find this type of work particularly appealing. I believe a true bona fide restoration team does not need as much time of a designer, but more of a good historian and a good shaper. Of course the technical issues are still crucial, so an architect would be called for, to be certain. And an architect's knowledge of the past would always be helpful, just as it would on a building project.
I call your attention to the list I provided at the top of this discussion:
1 Remodel
2 Restoration
3 Renovation
4 Re-build
5 Reroute
6 Rehabilitation
7 Transformation
What percentage of work ever done to golf courses was in category 2, "restoration"? 1%? 1.5%? Probably not even this large. My feeling is that this thread is not about "restoration" as it simply does not exist in large volume. It is, as Monty Python would say, "A dead parrot!"
Mark asks "whether the dead guys saw it diferently..." and "no" they did not. Their work was largely in categories 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 — just as it is today. Restoration is a very small, very specialized and very, very orphaned segment of any/all work done to golf courses. Very few people are willing to invest in simply restoring without also changing, bettering, altering, updating, and modernizing (dangerous word, sorry).