On Maps prime site it makes sense, embedded on other pages it makes less sense. But, the page other needs to add one line of config, or G needs to change defaults for embedded
- a static image
- a table of addresses with an external map link
It's not just the idea of wheeling around in some 256x256 box added at the last minute to a Contact Us page, the entire concept of an embeddable map is shit
Their main purpose seems to be to add 1 second to page loads across the web, and feed more clickstream back to the mothership
The main exception to this I can think of right now is Flightaware, but even that does not require such detailed rendering