ZWExton This should be mandatory. My wife is a really short hitter, and some courses have obviously done nothing to try accommodating people like her. On one course we use to play, the difference between the forward and regular tees is almost nothing, which is the reason we don't play there anymore.
While the effort other courses make to provide an alternative short set of tees is appreciated, some of the "tee boxes" (like you say, they're just fairway) are ridiculous. It's common for the tees to be on quite a severe up, down, or side hill. On one course, they had a couple of these forward tees in the rough! My wife couldn't ever really tee her ball up because the grass was so long.
A well kept, prepared forward tee would be very much appreciated and would attract us to the course.