Guyanonymous: in later versions of PS you can tell it to display a grid, and snap to the grid (very handy). I don't recall if PS7 has a grid or not, I believe it does - check Rulers and Measurements prefs to see if you can set up grid divisions, then under the View menu there should be a Snap To as well as a view Grid option to make life easier. You're right about inkscape

If one is going to paste in a compass, rather than delete the white try setting the layer to multiply, that'll deal with the white (also applies if you want to add clipart pieces for flavour).

For international borders, you might want to consider having your entire land shape as a single object on it's own layer (if you don't already). the easiest way off the top of my head at this point would be then to use the lasso tool (or pen if you're comfy with it) to cut the countries to their own layer. Once that's done, give them an inner glow effect and set fill to 0% so all you see is the layer effect.