Most of my hand drawn maps are scribbles, at best, because I typically draw them while the players are watching. However, when I do set myself to drawing a more attractive and deliberate map, I can do so. I'll answer your questions one-by-one.

1. Drawing more "spherical" maps instead of just using the dimensions of the paper
I've never needed to spherize a map. My campaigns are typically too localized to worry about that sort of thing, and it's not as though I'm making the PCs plot actual navigation courses.

2. How detailed do some of you go when hand drawing?
Depends on the purpose of the map. The regional map will include mountains, forests if they're dense enough to be an obstacle, major rivers, cities and points of interest.

Adventure sites are highly detailed, of course, though I don't use battlemats.

I usually only zone cities. The only buildings I draw are the ones that are important for one reason or another. If I need to draw in additional buildings, I can do so later.

And that answer covered question #4 as well.

3. Size of paper, do people usually use an 8x11 or use some larger peices?
I use whatever is handy, which is usually 8.5 X 11" printer paper or 11 X 17" sketch pads. For a little while, I used some even larger drafting vellum because I had it left over from a professional project (nothing better than supplies paid for by someone else!)

5. Lastly how the crap do you guys name half of the stuff you make? Map names, City names, lakes, rivers etc.
I just pull a random assortment of sounds out of my head. Or sometimes I roll Word Yahtzee dice. I'm no linguist, so I don't really even attempt to make believable names. Sometimes my names are puns or culture references; none of those showed up in Vendria, though.

6. Any other ideas that come to mind

A lot of these are things I already kind of know about and have put to my own use, but it would just be nice to know how some of you guys think when started a map
I run very character-driven games, and the relationships between people and groups are more important than geography. I usually know something about factions when I start world building, but putting them down on a map, even a scribbly one, helps to clarify my thinking. It shows me where my preconceived notions about what the world is are unlikely, or even impossible.

Sometimes following that practice results in some unlikely geography (like the river switchback that RPMiller pointed out in Vendria), so it's not the best way to make consistent and reasonable maps. It works for me, though, and since most of my players seem to enjoy playing in my games, I think I'll keep it up.

I don't know if I said anything particularly noteworthy in there; take what's useful and discard the rest.