[angiosperm]

I think you mean to say that you couldn't afford to devote the time to making a map that Microsoft did. Generally, in C++ we get to use data structures that have had far more attention to every detail than we could apply personally because they are used by many more than just us. Microsoft's gets used by everybody who uses their compiler, and so commands attention. It probably deserves more than Microsoft actually spends, but that is a management problem.