Voo: nicely done, then! the basic techniques you describe are in pretty common use, but i've not seem them applied quite the way you have before. Kudos to making the technique your own!

And yes, this has gone from "wow nice map" to "holycrap, nice map" The breakup of the banding works very nicely, and the text pops out that little bit more yet still keeps from dominating.

And if it's any consolation I kind of like the town icons myself. If you do decide to change them tomorrow (i've gone through the same kinds of phases myself, heh) I'd suggest seeing what they look like if you shrunk them down to about half size, that might look really nice, but still keep them matching the compass

Well done, sir!