I like the fade in idea... anything to get rid of all that sky and clouds and grass... don't you just hate generic template setups? ... You think they could actually make something that looks good and cool from the start... something you might not want to change the look of... but marketing isn't my area of expertise... nor am I a geomedia professional ..which i'm not sure I know what geomedia professional's do... (hang out @ the local map guild ? )
I love the map .... If i'm not mistaken... a Cthulhu map... or at least I believe we used one very similiar in a game once.. I love old maps