Hi Jeroen,
You're right: I like te map better without the borders on the roads. I made a version of my TYP file with a light grey background (type 0x4b) and all the borders stripped off the line definitions. It still needs tweaking colours and widths, but the general impression is lighter, clearer in MapSource, BaseCamp and the Oregon 550.
Some 15 years ago, when I lived in Germany for a few months, I remember the outcry of the renaming of Deutsche Bundesbahn to Deutsche Bahn and the accompanying logo renewal. Someone just removed one border around the letters DB and charged a large sum for it. One of the proposed advantages was clarity on low-resolution media, such as fax paper. The fax medium may be obsolete nowadays, but the tiny screen on some navigators has a similar if not lower resolution.
I you want to try, I uploaded a copy with family ID 1 at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20232727/M0000001-JM-no_spaghetti.TYP
Thank you.
I'd like to hear if the grey background works on your device too.
I am not using a background polygon on my map. It still is solid yellow. The contrast between the yellow residential roads and the yellow background is too low. All in all, I find the colors a bit pale or low-contrast. The contrast between the light blue "sea" and the light gray "industrial area" is too low in harbours. Waters could be a darker shade of blue. The orange roads and the light blue waterways are one or two pixels too wide for my taste. I have the feeling that the map draws more slowly with this TYP file. I have not tried to measure it. With these issues corrected and with the default names localized, I think that this could be the start of a good alternative to the "default TYP file" built into Garmin devices. Best regards, Marko