My Take. Many ways to learn and improve no doubt. As for the 1000 position thing. Any good instructor knows that a student should not focus on more than one position, move, or thought in golf swing development. And they certainly should not be doing it on a golf course. The process of swing developmen in a nut shell, as I only have so much room here.. 1. learn a skill/position/movement 2. practice this one key skill/position/movement alone without thinking about anything else and until you can achieve a good ouput with it 3. slowly incorporate that into a full complete swing 4. After it has been repeated to the point its an automatic function then work on hitting a target trusting the skill/position/movement 5. when that is capable then take it to the course and trust it or 6. go to the next skill/position/movement and repeat the process. But with any theory, style, idea, method ( doesn't matter which one ) you should never be focusing on more than one skill/move/thought/position etc. You can learn one thing and take that or learn 20 things one at a time, but only one should be focused on.
Great comments on Ernest Jones and rejection etc. btw.
Now how you decide or instructor decides to go about working on a skill is a large debate that will never end.. but its is true that the brain controls body.. we can learn from feel, simple thoughts, complex thoughts visual, verbal.. whatever allows you to accomplish a change which leads to improvement is what matters.. but in order for the brain to have automatic control of body it takes correct repetition to program into an automatic skill when we focus on what is really important which is playing or hitting our next shot.
Chris is right on with so much of what he is saying.. how do you walk? You tried, failed, tried more, still failed some, got better, then became eventually an automatic body function when you decided you want to go somewhere the subconscious mind makes your body move you dont have to think about how to walk. It is no different with hitting a ball except the debate still is around what is the best way.. and there really is no one perfect way to learn so trial and error will be a part of the process of learning to hit the ball til you find the way that works best for you. I could go more in depth but that is my best simple take on it. Great thread Chris and all who responded.