We have similar taste in maps. Highrise is good, but could be so much better. There's just too many places to camp and too many nooks and crannies, especially for such a small map. Vacant (COD4) was a SWEET map. I cleaned up more on that map than any other. It was sick. I'd put Backlot right behind Crossfire as my #3, and Strike was good, too.
You shouldn't have ditched the CoD 4 map pack so quickly, you'd have loved Broadcast. Putting up with Chinatown (which 60% of the time was voted to skip) and Creek was worth it.
Overall we have pretty close taste in maps although I don't much mind Wasteland, Afghan, or Scrapyard (really the only MW2 map I truly dislike is Underpass, it's just difficult to see!)
The most popular suggestion for the next installment after COD4 was more killstreaks. It was on the tip of everyone's tongue: we could get something after 7 kills... we want to pilot an AC130. So IW focused on fulfilling that demand, but to accommodate that, the maps had to be changed drastically. You needed larger maps with more open spaces to support the new killstreaks.
I don't think anyone (IW or the fans) thought about the consequences of changing map design so much from COD4 to MW2. Making matters worse was a better-tuned game engine that allowed for more "stuff". Many of MW2's maps are filled with so much debris and clutter; it's sometimes difficult to see your targets as a result. If you'll notice, the new maps are stripped of all this crap. Storm is a bloody FANTASTIC map, but when you really stop to look at it, it's a relatively simple layout with very little eye candy (yet it still looks very nice).
CoD 4 was great because it was so balanced. The issue with MW2 is that if you can get a few quick sequential kills you can turn into a killstreak machine the way they have it set up. I sort of like having killstreaks end at 7 personally. They definitely put too much junk in the game.
Unreal went through similar growing pains. When Epic went from UT99 to UT2k3, they had a brand new engine to play with. UT2k3's maps were stuffed to the hilt with garbage, static meshes, and eye candy galore. The game was wholly rejected immediately by fans, because a) you couldn't move around very well, and b) you couldn't see people very well. MW2 suffers from the same problems, just not as much.
Epic did it again with Gears of War. They promised that GoW 2 would be "Bigger, Bloodier, and more Badass!" and they delivered...to the point that I thought it was just stupid. Gears of War 1 was phenominal, Gears 2 I sold in under a month.
Seems like devs are on a roll of producing way too much eye candy in-game and not worrying about making games fun/stable. GoW 2 was absolutely plagued with connection issues when it was released as well.
Playlist crappiness aside, I will pay IW $15 every 3 - 4 months if they can keep cranking new maps out like the ones in this last pack. The only original MW2 maps I care to keep are Karachi, Invasion, and Highrise. You could probably make compelling arguments for Quarry and Derailed, too. Scrapyard can get in line right behind Wasteland and Afghan to lick my nuts.
Meh, I don't mind any of those maps much. From best to worst MW2 maps I'd rank them as:
Highrise
Terminal
Sub Base
Skidrow
Favela
Karachi
Scrapyard
Derailed (camp fest though)
Rundown
Invasion
Estate (This SHOULD be better than it plays out)
Afghan
Wasteland
Quarry
.
.
Rust
Underpass
Wasteland is a decent map but the issue is that it seems most people feel that the tunnel is somehow key to victory when in reality it's a freaking death trap. I need to go into a game with a group of friends and have everyone completely avoid the tunnel all together to see how it plays out (I think I'd be sniped about 200 times but oh well).