I suspect using a stone wall across a fw was considered great design until someone important got injured. I can hear some old timey gca telling his apprenctice..."You'll put their eye out, kid!"
Tommy is probably right. Every time a gca designs a course and hears the criticisms, they tend to get more conservative, making a mental note never to do "X" again. We get conservative, like old football coaches using less trick plays than young ones, having had way more than half of them fail to meet their objective.
I'm in the has to feel natural and unavoidable camp. There is a hole near Austin where they left a natural cave, and it works because it was just there, even if a small portion of golfers have to play out backwards when they hit down there.
For no particular reason, some built modern quirk I like is Tripp Davis Tribute in North Dallas. He built a very rumpled fw with no level lies. It was noticeably different than the other holes, and most other courses. It worked in the context of being a short hole so a non level lie was part of the challenge.
Is that quirk? I don't know. To me it is just a good feature you don't see too often.