Yes Brian. I've also played Pinehurst. Pebble Beach is my favorite course that I've played.
Pinehurst is a different beast in my mind, because not only did it look worse in the 90s than it did in the 40s, but it was also extremely resource intensive to maintain it as such. The bermuda-coated presentation robbed the course of its character and made it look like an old man's suburban lawn. By scruffing it up a bit, it's regained that character while better embodying its natural environment and reducing maintenance costs, at least in theory. That's a win-win-win.
Pebble has different turf, different terrain, different soil, and a different climate as compared to Pinehurst. As cool as the old pictures of the faux dunes around 7 and 17 look, they were just that: faux. They were basically impossible to maintain and were incongruous with the rest of Pebble's terrain. I also have seen the footage from the Wonderful World of Golf that Josh mentioned. While it's interesting to see Pebble looking so rough in the context of how high-end it has since become, I don't actually think it looked better back then.
It's a cliffside course, and yet everyone wants to turn it into a sandy-floored dunes course despite the fact that there really aren't any dunes on the property. It's also a rye course in a cool and fairly wet climate, so of course it stays a little greener and a little softer. The nature of its terrain, design, and climate all make it more of an aerial course than Pinehurst, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking it's a course that negates the ground game. I see no reason for Pebble to emulate Pinehurst's presentation. The Pinehurst presentation doesn't work very well in most parts of the country, including Monterey, and it's silly how often people on GCA complain about green grass on courses in temperate, moist climates with cool-weather grasses.