[icefox]

If I am looking at an address and want directions to it clicking on 'My places' only shows me "my places", it does not give me any obvious way to get directions from the current address to one of "my places". Clicking on any of "my places" will change the map to view that place, causing the user to lose the address of the place they want to go to/from.

Edit: I see that "my places" now has a "Home address" which isn't pre-populated with my google account confirmed home address for some reason.... But if I set it and then try to get directions and type in the first letter of my address my home address pops up in the auto complete. This is a big improvement, but of course auto setting the home address from your google account and remembering the last five in the auto complete would make a lot more users happy as that would work by default v.s. forcing the user to do something, most of which will not. The number of people that will set their home address is probably only a bit larger than the number that were using my grease monkey script to add a home button.

[milkbikis]

I absolutely agree that it needs a rethinking in terms of UI. Now that they are trying to consolidate google products, maps should be more aggressive in identifying useful destinations. I'm guessing they want to err on the side of not creeping people out, but I expect a popup introducing these features soon.