I would like to have vector maps... It makes routing so much easier... And it allows you to zoom in without distorting the picture... In an ideal world, maps would be presented as vector data, and only satellite images would be in png format...
But, I don't need garmin maps, I don't like too many dependencies, and I would prefer to have the smallest number of layers of software between the user and the hardware. The dependencies are a nightmare for me...
An example:
program->python-cairo->libcairo2->libfreetype6->zlib1g->libc6
program->python2.5->python2.5-minimal->pymaemo-optify->upstart
The programs used by people are just a tip of the iceberg: the number of the system packages installed automatically is much larger than the number of programs he uses...

It is certainly off-topic. But the point is: I cannot install navit because of its numerous dependencies (why do you need wget, for instance? if it is used only during installation, then find another, normal method of installation), and it seems that navit is the vector map program which makes the best progress and is the most flexible (I like XML).

But, why do all the vector map programs convert XML to something else like .bin or .pak? Cannot Geography Markup Language be viewed directly in some kind of rendering engine, similarly to HTML and SVG, instead of being converted to some special format?