Via @nickgonzalez, I stumbled upon Google Maps ‘Terrain’ feature and it is pretty sweet. The new view is more like a traditional paper map, highlighting elevation, vegetation, and highways routes. It looks fantastic. Look for it be the norm, soon.
Gone is the ‘Hybrid’ view — it’s now implicit with the ‘Satellite’ view (though you can toggle the streets names out).
Now all they need to do is give you controls to change your perspective and fly through the terrain. Imagine this on an iphone using the accelerometer as the controls for flying.