Oh yes, Google's colour scheme seems heavily geared towards the map only ever serving as an inconspicuous geographical background for displaying routing informa

Oh yes, Google's colour scheme seems heavily geared towards the map only ever serving as an inconspicuous geographical background for displaying routing information or POIs. When you actually want to use it as a map in its own right, it's absolutely infuriating, though – forests disappear when you zoom in, the distinction between built-up areas and surrounding open space does so likewise, so all you're left with is lots of faint white streets on a light grey background with some random green spaced dotted around.