Erik,
Forrest knows more than me, but designing for pace of play would change some long held tenants of design. I know Forrest disagrees in part with a few of the ideas I took from Yates, but they make sense to me:
Each hole should be of similar difficulty, which may go against rhythm, but they can be difficult in different ways, i.e., some with hard tee shots, some with hard approach shots, and some where the putting is difficult. If you graded the hole on that basis, on a 1-3 scale, most holes should be a 6 in total, whether the challenge is 2-2-2, or 3-1-2, etc.
The fastest play course would be 18 par 4 holes of similar difficulty.
What if the first hole was the toughest and each hole got a bit easier? That would reduce backups, I think, but not traditional, LOL.
Par 3 holes back up play. Ross said they could be harder because the ball is on a tee, and you can control the distance. It makes sense for pace of play that par 3 holes are deliberately made easier, or at least avoid things that slow play like bunkers short right. Maybe par 3 holes should grade out at 1-1-1.......
It helps if the hole before the par 3 is harder to slow down the approach to the hole.
It helps if the hole after the par 3 is easier, or at the least, has a wide open tee shot to get those golfers out of the way when players come off the par 3 and hopefully find the next tee already vacated.
Our fascination with reachable par 5 holes and driveable par 4 holes should probably be a thing of the past, from the PoP perspective.
There is a lot more....i.e., ponds really don't slow play as they are usually a quick drop, but sand bunkers do. And there is still more, but I need more coffee today to remember, lol.