[notatoad]

This criticism reminds me a bit of when people criticize Google search results for a query like "insurance" or "shoes" having too many ads. Searching for vague terms is useless, so they just display ads instead.

At the zoom level the screenshots are taken at, maps are essentially useless. The most important information they can convey is "there's lots of roads here" or "this region is densely populated". The maps aren't optimized for accuracy, they're displaying a summary. The long island example really struck me - the old map displayed the primary route only, the new map conveys the fact that there are multiple options. If you're stuck in traffic and you pull up the map, you can see there's another decent route and ask the app to provide you with directions on an alternate route. If you're using the old maps, you'd just see the single primary route highlightedand assume you should stick with the route you're on.