Tom P
Ed-san has it right. All I've ever said is that all shots, holes and courses have some value and encourage some strategic thinking from the golfer. Every hole has some "position A" and every approach shot has some desired angle and trajectory. Some of each obviously have more of each than others.
As for "shot values" I'm still confused. I always thought it was being used on this site as a shorthand for architect's intent, i.e.:
"_____________ (fill in the GAGA) designed the __________ (fill in the hole) at ___________ (fill in the course) to be a cut 3-wood off the tee followed by a mid-iron banked off the entirely natural looking mound-like feature on the right side of the green complex. With new technology, the pros are bombing drivers over the trees and hitting wedges straight at the flagstick, completely negating the shot values that ______________ intended."
What a lot of the good discussion above tells me is that we don't have a common understanding of the meaning of the words. The closest might be something like "the relative degrees of interest and difficulty of the shots one tends to be faced with on a golf course."
And don't despair, TEP, I very much do believe, and always have, that architects and developers and shapers and superintendents and members and others can and do make a very big difference in the relative "shot values" of a course, as defined above. The only thing I remain stubborn on is whether or not it is useful or a distraction to consider what these people do, collectively and over time, as "art."