In my opinion colors are nice on the map, but with too bright colors and/or too big a color mixture it sometimes get hard to see the POI added to the map. So given the choices I prefer few, or dull colors.
But then, all this is a moot point as long as the admins are too busy with other stuff to add any new maps to the downloader
Colors, so long as they're relatively muted, are great to me. But I want to see the boundaries precisely -- the HoS map is great for that, the SoF one's borders are a bit too 'fuzzy' for my taste. Not that it isnt great work: perhaps if there was an overlay on it of the actual boundaries that would mute the colors just a bit (so that the POIs can stick out well).
as for fuzzy walls... i must admit, there was some lazyness involved (also i haven't heart to tell group "guys, let's clear all the thrash here just for mapping")
plus, you still get right directions (you can't pass directly north from graves, etc), and we don't want this hell of thin lines like on great faydark map.