Since this was originally supposed to be repeatable with any future maps, I decided to try documenting (for myself) why I've done so far. As I started I decided to share it here in case anyone else can benefit/improve upon the style. I wish I could remember every tutorial I've looked at or used to learn while creating this map. There have been several, usually mentioned in this thread while I've experimented with them, to which I can direct 90% of the credit. Thanks!

Attached should be a pdf with screen captures of each layer on my main map, captures of selected effects box settings, and some commenting. Hopefully it's of use to someone, even in its very raw form. The image shots are from CS5 (a recent upgrade), but this was all create in CS4 after land-only, water-only, texture-only, heigh-map only maps were output from FT Pro.

EDIT: the pdf is too large, so I'm hosting it here for anyone who wants to grab it: http://rapidshare.com/files/44609075...tyle-notes.pdf