Hirnsaege -
First off, I just want to thank you for taking on this project. Far too many of us lack the time or willpower (or knowledge of coding) to take on a task like this. It's nice to see someone step up and look to make improvements.
That said, I unfortunately have to say there's a lot that I feel is superior on the current format that on your improved map.
Starting from the top:
The main menu buttons: As is, with the buttons having the suboptions below them, this takes up far more space than the current format. As suggested before, dropdown submenus would greatly enhance this section. It would cut down on wasted vertical space, for the cost of only a single click.
Game-header: To me, this is another area of wasted space that doesn't give us any information we have now. Whereas you have everything listed in columns, the current format has everything neatly in rows. The current format has the game title listed large, with everything from you Settings column listed below or to the right. Half of your status column is listed there as well. I do not see the benefits of expanding everything as you have it. The other column, "your status" is listed immediately below those, again, with everything neatly put in a line. The only thing that might be an improvement, would be the vote buttons up top, but that might also just be confusing to people who are scrolling from the bottom (the players list) to see who's voted draw or pause, just to have to scroll all the way back up to vote. It's something to think about.
The diplomacy box: No real complaints here, although all the information you have there (name, centers/units, player name/points/reliability, and last seen) are already in the current format.
The map: To be perfectly honest, I strongly dislike the magnified view. There absolutely HAS to be a way to disable it, or only use it at certain times. Sometimes you need to zoom out in order to see where supports are coming from or going. It's not always so close together that you can see it in the zoomed view. Imagine a WWIV game where people are supporting from one end of the map to the other. It'd be very difficult to see all that in the zoomed view. Also, going along with others, I feel the buttons for changing the view on the map back and forward in the map should remain where they are. Intuitively, it just seems to make more sense that way.
Orders section: Looks solid. Just reiterating what others said, there needs to be explanations of the buttons for new people, or a differently designed button.
Players list: Again, seems like a waste of space to me. All the columns take up space, and doesn't give us any real important information that we do not already have. Country name, player name, points, reliability, and last seen are already there, just in a more condensed way. In addition, votes, status, units, bet, and worth are all there too. The only thing that's not is "to win", which could be useful (although I'd argue that people should be responsible enough to check the win condition on their own!). Perhaps that could just be added into the current format?
Overall: honestly, I feel the screen is too wide. Aesthetically it looks odd to me to see the left side pretty much wasted (do we really need those section titles (Orders, Diplomacy, the map, Players list and archives? I'd argue not.), and the right side wasted in the map section (assuming we move the buttons underneath), the orders section (is it necessary to be that wide? Was it to keep it all on one line? What if things are still too look (like those crazy long space names in WWIV?), and the players section (again, much more condensed as it stands now, and we don't lose much information, if anything). Maybe I'm just OCD, but I like things to line up nicely instead of seeing some sections wider than others, and those other ones have blank space.
Sorry if that seems harsh, but I figured we're all trying to help, so I'd give my feelings. It's truly awesome that you're taking this task up.