I find this easier to think about in terms of living architects, ie those with long careers and several 18 hole new-builds to their names. I'd imagine that, to a person, every one of them would say that they're always learning over the years, always getting better at their craft, always improving their technical and aesthetic 'know how' in terms of actually building good golf holes. Which either means that, if given the chance every living architect would go back to their first course(s) and change not just a hole or two but all 18 holes, making the entire course better, or that they are lying about their continual learning! 
The flaw in most people's understanding of the term "evolution" is the belief that evolution connotes improvement. Instead, evolution is an adpation to the changing demands of the environment, or, in a business setting, the changing demands of the market. Just because frilly bunkers [or muscle bunkers, or no bunkers] are in vogue at one time, doesn't make all of the projects that went before "wrong", or worse.
So, I may be better at building whatever kind of bunker I want, than I was in 1989 -- or, probably more accurately, I've got more guys around me who are good at building them. But, that doesn't mean that if I were to go back to High Pointe and resuscitate it, that I should build bunkers in the style of Tara Iti or Pacific Dunes. It's a different place, a different setting, and it was a different time in my career, and I think all of that should be respected.
P.S. If everybody's so much smarter in their old age, then why aren't all of them building their greatest-ever designs? Could it be that for many, the passion fades?