Thanks for the insights. I followed the tutorial almost to the letter (though there were a few... issues), and that's how it said to do the rivers, mountains, and coastal shelf (though I agree that the coastal shelf could be a tad smaller and more subdued). I made the settlement icons intentionally sharp, so as to stand out from the rest of the map. As for the border of Tetrax, I don't know what happened there.
I'm still a padawan, though, so I hope to get better as I do more maps.