Yeah, that's confusing. Map deletion is performed in the same "thread" as map downloading, and it uses the same progress bar. So, it might say "Downloading maps", but it's really deleting them. I should fix that, I think, although I'm not sure what the best approach is. "Downloading/Deleting maps"? "Modifying maps"?
That sounds doable. Write up a Feature Request on garage.maemo.org, so I don't forget.
The GPX Driving Directiosn web service already filters "Rd" into "Road", "St" into "Street", and a whole slew of other translations.
There have been reports of the satellite repositories being a little finicky, sometime blocking requests for some time or returning error pages. I don't think it's ever been permanent, though. Does maps.google.com work?