I don't really understand why the map has to be at the crazy orientation that it is. All other grand strategy games have North at the top, including all AGEOD games and Great Invasions.
Also I don't understand why it is such a great deal of effort to change the orientation, surely you just load it into Photoshop and rotate it through 90 degrees. Ok the writing will be misalighned, but that is way better than having the map orientation the way it is.