rev, good points to bring up with the pluses and minuses of both systems. I still havent taken the time to properly explore being able to load off line maps on my phone, and so still havent used that aspect, although it seems at first and second glance to not be easily setup for a regular joe-schmoe like me (again, my idea was to use it just when needed and obviously not online).
I still say that this is a market to be taken advantage of, ie , selling offline maps for a fee that can be used in phones and used when needed--although I guess its counter productive when you have proper gps units (car, bike and hike, whatever) with this system in place, so companies dont want to get into the phone business too (and the potential loss of income from people sharing the files maybe too?)

anyway, interesting take on the topic by you, thanks for the update and the ins and outs of both.