Ok, that's what's getting done to one of the houses I bowl at, and because I know the owner well enough to know he's a cheap idiot, I already KNOW it's crap, but what I want to KNOW is just how bad is it?  He needs to replace everything past the foul line, but all he's doing is overlaying, as well as already purchasing a new lane machine that will lay down his bait of a wall shot better than the last one.  The lanes are old wooden lanes, with pock marks and partially warped heads.  There is gutter capping and raised foul lines.  The pits do severe damage to balls on occasion.  The approaches seem to be ok though, although in some places there are nails sticking up from parts that have been patched.  On a very few lanes it is necessary to loft the ball a small bit to avoid abhorrent patch jobs early on in the heads.  Still, it's the biggest, and for some reason the most popular (until this year) house in the city, and since we only have 5 to begin with, and only two of them that people bowl at much (the others are veritable trash heaps, although one out north of the city is starting to gain some popularity, the one that is incredible past the foul lines is an AMF house, so you know . . ) so if this house keeps going down the drain, at least we have one nearly pristine house.  Thoughts?  Opinions?  Expertise?
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I know Kung Fu!

I am the one, the one that will bring balance.  All the pins shall be destroyed!

I have to agree that it sounds like somebody has their wires crossed on the composition of the new lane beds that are going in.  They will probably cut down the old wood lanes somewhat, and apply the new lane surface on top of the cut down wood lane beds.  They recently did something similar to this in the old wooden lane house here in town (where I no longer bowl).  Since the house is purchasing a new lane machine, then obviously the new surface is not an oil-free surface such as teflon might be.  My guess is that the new surface is one of the new plastic overlays that are designed to rejuvenate the old lanes.

What you DON'T want is a Guardian plastic film overlay.  Guardian is a thin film that will soon take on the same characteristics of the wood that it is covering.....it is good for about 6 months, but then it is trash.

Since you already have decent wood approaches, the best combination would be for them to cut down the lanes and do the synthetic overlay, and keep the old wood approaches.  That's what they recently did in the local house.  Synthetic approaches are definitely more of a hassle than wood approaches, so the wood approaches are worth keeping.  I bowl regularly on some decent synthetic approaches, but even the humidity within the building can make a big change in how good or bad the approaches are.  With synthetic approaches, you have to keep the humidity down inside the building, or the approaches will become extremely tacky.  What I routinely find is that if bowlers lay the ball down short of the foul line, the ball will leave an oval shaped oil mark on the approach, and this little mark of oil will be enough to cause you to have an unexpected sticking incident.  I've gotten to where I'll go out and get down on the floor and check out the approaches before each match begins, and I'll clean up any needed spots rather than sticking in them later.  On synthetic approaches, rubbing alcohol and a rag makes a good cleaner for getting the bad spots cleaned up.

Teflon it is not due to the softness of the resin. I have also heard of the new overlay that is about an inch thick and has a very low coefficient of friction. Have heard it rivals or slightly less than Brunswicks Pro-Anvil lanes. Jury is still out as this product is pretty new and how well it holds up is limited to very few data points. Talking with local proprietor though he said cost was quite reasonable compared to a full synthetic lane. I would expect to see many here in the northeast if this product does well as many houses are very old wood.