Michael Kelly:
Good question and in the context of the "ideal maintenance meld" target golf and target golf architecture is very important to define and categorize too, in my opinion.
I think RJ, Evan, Doug and Forrest are right to say that target golf architecture is sort of light on ground game architecture and is primarily designed to accomodate aerial strategy and aerial play.
To make complete sense of the concept of the "ideal maintenance meld" it's important to keep stressing that the concept is to first define exactly what kind of style and type architecture one is dealing with and to then create maintenance practices that meld into that architecture most completely and ideally.
The idea is to recognize better the differences in architectural styles and types--sometimes vast differences--and to keep necessary maintenance practices distinct from one another. For too long maintenance practices have been too homogenized into a "one size fits all" mentality which basically ended up some time in the Modern Age as over irrigated and lush and defined only as "good condtion" for all types and styles of architecture. When that prevalent maintenance practice came about in the modern age most of the old pre-WW2 lost about one half of their designed strategies--the ground game options! The "ideal maintenance meld" for that style and type is simply to return that important design intent to complete functionality.
Just as the old pre-WW2 courses were designed for both the aerial and ground game, the newer post WW2 courses came to be designed primarily for the aerial game.
Logically then, those older courses should be maintained drier and faster to enhance their ground game designs while the newer courses should be maintained softer and particularly with less firm and more receptive greens to enhance their primary feature--the aerial game.
The older courses need to be maintained firmer "through the green" and to also have their green surfaces maintained firmer (dent don't pitch mark) simply to put more pressure on accomplished players to play really first class aerial shots or else avail themselves of some kind of compromise ground game shot or option. This latter point is really key, and basically the final and essential ingredient for the older ground game courses, in my opinion.
The point is if the old ground game courses don't do that with their green surfaces (make them firmer and less reliable to aerial shots) good players will rely on their aerial game all day long at the expense of ground game strategies.
Obviously all this gets a bit complicated to manage when the style of a course is somewhat of a combination aerial/ground game course as some of those transition designs of the late 1950s and 1960s were.
But again, for true "target" golf architecture the "ideal maintenace meld" should be softer conditions throughout and particularly on the greens so players can spin the ball to their heart's delight all the time because that's basically what most of those target golf designs offer and about all they offer.
When these distinct "ideal maintenance melds" become better understood and better practiced the time very well may come when golfers and architects come to realize that the newer "target" golf designs really are the style and type that don't offer the array of options, strategies and possiblities that the older courses do and the cycle of design may begin to turn back somewhat to once was!