[PhantomGremlin]

There's much more wrong with Google maps on the desktop than what the article mentions.

My biggest gripe is contrast, rather the lack thereof. Zooming in and out doesn't help. There's a lack of contrast at all levels!

And the algorithm for displaying place names sucks. You'll see certain names at one level, zoom in and they disappear, zoom in some more and they finally reappear.

Paper maps are unquestionably more ergonomic (but much less convenient) than Google maps. But it's not just Google. I find other online maps equally bad. It's quite sad that a paper Rand McNally map is so much better at actually presenting the geography of an area.

Perhaps other posters here are right, it seems like Google maps is designed for point-to-point navigation, nothing more.