BolloxInBruges:
+1 for stimp speeds. Just think, we could have 10, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 hell 10.35. It would be harder to master 50 speeds than it is the master the current 5-6, and keep score more in check. Of course some people that are not real life golfers would have no idea what a stimpmeter is, so you can still keep the old labels in place.... Speed - Tournament (11.8).
Nice idea, and I'm in agreement too. Except for the "hell" speed! 
I don't think it really matters whether players understand the stimp meter or not - the number will simply signify whether the speed is slower or faster and by how much (for players to work out) than the distance on the actual putting meter. I guess we would need to know what would be 'normal'. I would suggest 10 as normal, then anything less would be slower and anything higher would mean faster. And like you say, you can then have many different speeds and could possibly be incorporated into the code easier than it is at the moment because there would be no need to set values to names (e.g. standard = 9, fast = 10, very fast = 11, etc).