I agree with Bungo B. completely here, but as one of the ET working on the mess of a map that became 5.0, I have some things to add.
1.
Tahn is the map with the greatest population, but, unfortunately, it's ****. I was met with so much furious resistance from the other staff working on it when I tried to give suggestions and solutions to ugliness, I eventually just gave up. I was disallowed from fixing myself the problems I saw, supposedly because the blobby worldpainted terrain was so precious to its creator. There were so many random, nonsensical features around the map that looked absolutely horrible- too much and too big for just one ET to handle in the time we had. For next map, just hire a pro worldpainter with donation money so we actually get a nice map to play around on. We don't need moonrock terrain or The Burning Sands ( t. Arteh ) when people just want snow, deserts, swamps, forests, and plains (and some water for Sutica).
Ceru is the nicest map, but it suffers from scale issues that really rile me. The mountains are literally shorter than the trees surrounding them. From the highest peak of all the mountains on Ceru, I believe there was still ~100 blocks of free space up in the air to go.
2.
Just allow ET to ruin inactive settlements. I would have petitioned to get this thing going while I was on the team, but I was selfishly hammering away on my own projects that never really panned out.
3.
We really only need one map with two continents (classic MMO setup).
4.
I, as an experienced ET, revile things like these so called "main storylines" that always seem to fall into the hands of the same clique of tall, handsome; radiant High Elven Aengulically blessed men and their big-bosomed She-Elven sidekicks also with Aengulic powers. The fight against Setherien was actually very fun besides a few problems (like giving PvP powers to the wrong people).
5.
Everything besides Asul really just needed a complete replacement. At least the mossy cobble covering everything was removed after I screamed enough.
6.
As @bungo said, the unshakeable power of this map's development was absolutely out of touch with player needs. I had a hard time getting suggestions in, and was usually just brow beaten into silence by people trying to win said power's favor.
7.
Same thing as my answer to 4, and what bungo said.
8.
Just refer to bungo on this one. I don't like leading in RP.