On another note: it's interesting that it wasn't until I saw this design refresh that I didn't realise just how stale the old design was. It seems like Google revolutionised the maps world when they first released it, and then they let the interface stagnate ever since, so this is nice to see.
We'll see how the new look works in action - I can't say I see a huge improvement, though there are definitely a few features that make it more at-a-glance effective.
Japan/Korea/etc are essentially not covered at all ... they don't even seem to have any roads except for the most major highways—Tokyo on here.com literally has like five roads!—and what very little data they do have is often wrong.
Even Apple does vastly better... oO;
I've used it in South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana and Namibia, and was very impressed. Little tracks that hardly qualify as a road are there, and reliable. The other big deal in that part of the world is that both maps and navigation are 100% functional when offline.
Anyone making graphics-intensive sites (maps, photos, landing pages, etc) that isn't serving @2X versions is now officially Doing It Wrong. The retina iPad has been out for ages, and we now have a sub-$1500 laptop (and of course all of the high-end Apple stuff) on which all of this low-res stuff makes your brand and product look like crap. Seriously, it's not that hard.