Maybe, when we were kids, our brains were just more flexible in this regard, which is why I have this impression.
I'd like to add something about mines: the number of mines in an area determines the size of the area itself, i.e., the number of mines is one of the regulators of the desired area size. As we remember, there is one mine in each treasure area on the 6LM map, and these treasure areas seem to look reasonably good.
Regarding the spider's roads – are you sure they are good there? It seems better than in 6LM10a, but there are still cases where there is only one road leading to the spawn point, and all other paths are off-road – is this not a problem?
In any case, it's a great suggestion! Maybe we can create convenient, well-refined templates that are more playable.
