Here in kerala ( a small state in india ), we have a project called Mapathon Keralam. They work with engineering colleges to map out nearby places as well as any place in general. Had contributed few places myself. So pretty much all places in kerala are now mapped in it :)

Me too… using MTP for my phone to lap transfers.Nothing ever came fast as cable transfer.

Yep. I personally like the approach of having a pretty decent system by default and then install extensions for customizing it, rather than having a bloat load of options.