Traditionalists, which do you value more: the playing area or the building?

Traditionalists: should non-uniform playing areas be mandatory? Thursday, September 12, 2013
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For some perspective let's consider the arenas used fifty years ago in both the National Football League (NFL) and in some cases also by the American and National Leagues.  Here are the NFL cities in 1963 and where they played their home games.

Baltimore: Memorial Stadium; Colts and Orioles

Chicago: Wrigley Field; Bears and Cubs; NFL championship game played here in December (Bears beat Giants)

Cleveland: Cleveland Municipal Stadium: Browns and Indians

Dallas: Cotton Bowl; Cowboys; no baseball team yet; Senators moved to Dallas in 1972 and became the Texas Rangers

Detroit: Tiger Stadium; Lions and Tigers

Green Bay: New City Stadium; Packers
Green Bay: Milwaukee County Stadium; Packers and Braves

Los Angeles: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum; Rams; Dodgers played there 1958-1961

Minnesota: Metropolitan Stadium; Vikings and Twins

New York: Yankee Stadium; Giants and Yankees

Philadelphia: Franklin Field: Eagles

Pittsburgh: Pitt Stadium; Steelers

San Francisco: Kezar Stadium; 49ers, who later played in Candlestick Park same as the Giants

St. Louis: Busch Stadium (Sportsman's Park); football Cardinals and Cardinals

Washington: District of Columbia Stadium; Redskins and Senators

In 1963 12 of the 14 NFL cities also had a baseball team, plus the Packers played some home games in Milwaukee.  Eight of the 12 shared the same arena.  Except for Washington, the remaining NFL arenas would not generally be characterized with the common baseball traditionalist pejorative "cookie-cutter".

So what's the point?  The point is that for the NFL games the playing areas were uniform.  They were just jammed into spaces that were often not suited for football.  Wrigley Field had a brick wall right behind one end zone.

Baseball uses the arena as part of it's playing area.  How quaint.  Our baseball brains have been pummeled since early childhood, in many cases before we have reached the age of reason, to think that this is necessary, logical, fair, charming, etc.  In other words all the things that we would otherwise reject but for that brainwashing.

So I put another uncomfortable question to traditionalists.  If you had to choose between these two alternatives, which would you choose?

1. Uniform playing areas with different buildings.

2. Non-uniform playing areas with the same buildings.

I've been wondering if the entire issue isn't simply about architecture.  We can make the buildings look very different but have the same playing dimensions with the same wall heights.  While this does not directly impact having those distances the same in all directions it takes us a lot closer to a rational understanding of why baseball fans insist on defending something that is inherently unfair and at odds with their fundamental beliefs.