So... traffic actually gets loaded when panning the map, but for whatever reasons, the map view in Maps seems to have a harder time displaying the traffic data. Drive also doesn't always show traffic data when panning, but I feel its behavior is more consistent.

I have tried to understand why and see if there is any workaround, but decided I should give up. It's better to give users options than to perfect a feature that isn't implemented by me.

Again, I don't have a lot of time to clean up what I modified on device. But I hope I can get the diff done this week.......