this is a good analogy... let's take wrigley field for example... the place is a dump... the best thing they could do to it is blow it up...
and as big of a red sox fan as i am, and as many fond youthful memories i have of the place, the same goes for fenway...
and here in philly, we have good old franklin field, where you still pee up against a wall...
a question that needs to be asked: "did they only build great golf courses 100 (or so) years ago?"... if this is your position, then yes, i can see how you are upset that certain courses can no longer fit the needs of the "modern" tour (25,000-40,000 spectators, amenities for them, parking, transportation, etc.)... it's easy to say "length is killing off the older classic courses", but everything else needs to be taken into consideration as well...
conversely, i believe there have been several great (and several "not so great") courses built since "the classics" were built... so there is no dearth of high quality places for them to play...
nothing lasts forever... i went to the us open at merion... i wish that they hadn't hosted it... having played the course, the us open setup was no longer "merion"...