I honestly have no experience in course design, I just design courses for fun on my iPad, have a strong interest in it and watch a lot of international show jumping, so take what I say with a grain of salt :P

A lot of courses are designed to take the horse and rider throughout the whole arena so I would consider that when placing obstacles, and changes of direction as well.

I would also think of it in components if you don't want to move things around a lot. Such as bending lines, combinations, etc. Maybe if you have a triple combination or 3-part line in one course, you could make it a double instead for another and have the course take a turn before the 3rd fence? That could be a good test of communication (i did this in a lesson once, the horse and I were not communicating well and he locked onto the 3rd fence and jumped it despite me trying my best to turn him lol)

I would also experiment with courses that have different approaches to certain lines. This is harder to explain in writing but let's say from jump A to jump B, there's another jump you pass by towards jump B. The rider could choose to go around the outside of the middle jump and have a more straight-on approach but miss the opportunity to cut time. Whereas going around the inside of the middle jump you could save time but have a more difficult approach.

Just my two cents!

Oh absolutely! We did a clinic where we worked on courses like that.

Jumper courses are meant to be technical. Easy lines with no real way to shave off time isn't fun.

Maybe look at some hunter courses, but specifically from handy classes? If it's for jumpers, you wouldn't want trot jumps and gait changes, but I find handy courses to be quite intriuing for this purpose nonetheless. I really liked the 4-jump square situation in this course.

i know, i've been to kentucky, hits chicago and all of those big shows :) i'm just offering to help

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