Buck, to add to what's already been said, nearly all maps on Conquer Club go through an extensive design process. Definitely drop by the Foundry to see it in action, but maps have to go through quite a lot to even make it to the Beta stage.
There are a few maps that I don't particularly care for that didn't go through the Foundry (St. Patrick's Day - *shudder* (= - I see you're acquainted with it), but that's because they were created specifically for official site events, and they were kept under wraps until the last minute.
Is this your friend's map?
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewto ... pittsburgh
It looks like it was coming along nicely. It takes a long time to develop a map for CC, and the standards are relatively high, especially now that we have so many maps. It's a shame that the map development stalled out. The graphics were still pretty rough, and the gameplay hadn't been sorted out yet. It looks like the mapmakers were in a hurry to rush it to Beta, but it takes a long time to create a map for CC. The Pitt map was still pretty young, and its thread only had 7 pages. For comparison, check out the Philadelphia map (it took 40 pages to get it quenched, so in comparison, the Pitt map was less than 20% complete):
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewto ... iladelphia
From time to time, maps get face-lifts with new art, although the gameplay is retained. Classic has gone through a number of versions, and the North America map was revised about six months ago. None of the actually gameplay was altered, but the maps were prettified. =)
People that cross-map would be upset if maps were summarily removed. Iron Maid has triple cross-mapped every map, I think (that's 15 unique kills per map).
Random maps are always fun. =) You never know if you're going to get something easy like Middle East or something like Baseball or the Hive. =)
So what maps would be on your list to get rid of? Other than Saint Patrick's Day, I don't see any maps on your list that are particularly poorly drawn. I'm not a fan of the Tamriel or Discworld graphics, personally, but the gameplay's fine on those two.
You did get some tough maps for random, though. Monsters and Das Schloss are two of my favorite maps, but they do take a couple of playthroughs to get the hang of. Antarctica is tough, too. I'm still trying to figure out the best strategy for that map, but I think that's a positive, not a negative.
