thanks for the info p!xeldealer. I'm not too worried about losing searches because it's so rare that i do it anyways, but newer mapping would be nice. If i had a helicoptor, i could show you some mountainous areas that i drive through where entire road systems were rebuilt and I'll be tracking between 50-100 feet along side. You can see the cuts through what is now regrown forest where the gps' mapped road is. ..you can see and all the exits, crossings, and sections where it comes back to the new road, etc. It's kind of entertaining but also annoying. again, thanks for the tip. I'm definitely going to look into that.

As far as not updating maps for nroute, i'm pretty certain it has to do with people doing exactly what i'm doing. SSD's (non-mechanical harddrives) made this possible and they went mainstream around the same time they cut off support for nroute. This year, garmin has some really spendy head units in the $5000-8000 range featuring large displays that i'm sure they want to sell, sure they have sounding features but everything else is the same as i can do with a crappy laptop and an old garmin handheld.