In the end I took the backroad and ended up just making it after driving on the "empty tank" light for about 80km (which is surprising how long it lasted!). My fault for zoning out and blindly trusting GPS!
I also hate not being able to keep north fixed on the screen unless I'm in CarPlay. That just doesn't make sense.
The entirety of the next 3 steps, precisely what I cared about the most, was totally obscured by the hill in the 3d view.
The exact same hill I was seeing out my windshield. The hill in my windshield was the reason I was glancing at my mapping app for further guidance. facepalm
eg the US and Australia now have built-in reviews.
And yes, we even like the 3D view. It helps provide context faster than the 2D view, even if it doesn't always render the best information. Every product has room for improvement, and Apple Maps has been improving. Google Maps isn't usefully better now than it was in 2015.