I will say that I kind of love minimaps. I don't think that they should be required and I absolutely get why you'd want to turn them off, they take up a ton of space. If you're splitting files more often I could also see it getting really annoying.

But I think of code very visually and spatially and I don't split files until I have to, so it does help me quickly navigate to be able to sort of see the "shape" of a file and to be able to quickly jump around in it, especially if the file is divided into clear sections. Mostly just personal preference, and I agree they should never be mandatory.

And agreed on the large images/maps, most image editors have a viewport feature like that and it's pretty useful when doing detail work.