I like the idea of it being a 'parchment' version, knowing that it is an approximation (the subtle curves and S-bends of rivers/road/boundaries quantized, though, rather than dubiously warped scale of a Mappa Mundi) that is the 'idea' of the world that only in the progrssively zoomed view (then embark) do you get the full detail. Toady-willing (well, you might as well ask!), you might even have the ability to dither the tile positions/same-item-variants upon the parchment (or with suitably sheared transforms for cell-to-cell features) to give a not-obviously-tiled look more like your personal favourite or classic Tolkien maps. With colour 'washes' as sub(-also-dithered-or-stretch-or-skewed)-cells below the 'pen drawn' mountain/tree-clusters, fluvial/lacal/deltaic/littoral boundaries, other landforms, indicators of civilisation/etc.
The more "full-on-graphical" thing looks like it's supposed to be the form, at 1:1scale, a bit like the Mario world map does with the road(s) you progress through between stage 'spots' (though your WIP one that I like also has that feel it's the baasic tiledness, and my 'dithered tile shuffling' idea could be applied equally to that to 'improve' it) with its 'forced perspective'.
In my head I have this procgen method of (consistently, for the same features in a map porthole on the world, regardless of viewport bounds) adding variations to a superset of basic arttwork to make it look like a "There And Back Again" illustration, with all the data one might ask (in the most-zoomed in map, that'd include altitude/slope/biome-membership rendering also) but it might be beyond what you're likely to get as a set of capabilities. In this first Steam-prettified version, at least. But putting it out there as a concept anyway.