Tom Paul;
Aye, there's the rub, isn't it?
As one who was probably as personally guilty of becoming emotional over the whole Merion bunkering issue as anyone, I still think the issues covered at that time are the defining paradoxical questions that this group wrestles with, and I'm not sure what the answer is.
Basically, the one big issue I see is this;
How do we encourage passion and honest emotions on this site without losing decorum and reason?
How do we offer honest criticism of architectural work without either someone being seriously offended (in this case, the folks at Merion), or worse yet, engaging in the type of heated diatribes back and forth that take up too much bandwidth and reading time here.
For instance, using your example, if I think the work at Merion (or any course or club) was ill-conceived, poorly executed, and ultimately inconsistent with what I think of when I consider the greatness of the course and club, how does one say that honestly and openly without getting politically alienated? Is that possible? Or, should we be Pollyanish in phrasing things so lightly and politically correctly that all relevant meaning is lost and we begin to resemble a political party controlled by special interests.
Or, as happens in many cases here, someone will criticize an architects work, only to be engaged by defenders of same (think, "The Bridge" thread) in a rancorus debate that generates lots of heat but little light. Egos are bruised, people in the industry are offended (although many must be truly thin-skinned), and ultimately the site suffers.
So, I'm left to wonder how we maintain our critical integrity, encourage open and honest dialogue, talk about pertinent issues in a courageous and direct fashion, yet avoid alienating ourselves as a bunch of Luddites, or worse yet, imploding within from contentiousness.
The only thought I'm left with is to always act as though the audience of any particular thread might be the gentleman sitting next to you at dinner, and not a world away on a computer screen.