The grey roads aren't good on the eyes, and it needs better contrast. They come out with design schemes but fail when they need to deliver it themselves.

I don't even bother with Google Maps any more. It shows miles on many dialogues when my locale (South Africa) only uses kilometres. Also, I don't know what preference they give to nearby POIs, but it's mostly useless (or random).

Install one of the OpenStreetMaps-based apps like Magic Earth or OSMAnd with offline maps and customisability, and it works well enough.