I do live in New York, thank you very much. My only attitude is that the MTA should never have killed Exit Strategy, that was the one really productive tool for straphangers.

Why do the situations you've proposed have any benefit from the MTA's map? Trying to determine which stations are near your origin or destination based on a system map is a fool's errand, particularly for as large a network as ours. If you're estimating walking times based on distance on the MTA's map, you're going to be very unpleasantly surprised.

The part of those questions that a system map can be useful for is which lines are continuous, which as I mentioned above, is best done when you can see it clearly rather than needing to read it.