Understanding where this thread is at is almost a study. I fundamentally do not agree with the majority of your points. Allow me to quote:
Level Design Workshop: The Holy Grail of Multiplayer Level Design: Casual and Competitive Maps
(at 10:00)
Ways to support casual play
- Rebounds and chaos
- Easy to learn
- Limited tactics
- Sandbox play
- Single-scan arenas (easy overview)
(at 12:00)
Ways to support competitive play
- Multiple valid options
- Resilient options
- Multi-scan arenas (harder to get overview)
With that in mind, one can easily argue that Astro falls into the casual type of map. It is easy to learn, there isn't much tactics available, it can feel sandbox-isch because you generally don't do a whole lot with your opponent and it is easy to have an overview of the map. Up to an extent Gap fills these criteria too.
Maps that you argue are 'bad' because they don't fill. Generally these maps are more competitive and therefore they belong to a different audience - and there is less of that audience. Hence, the lobby fills slower.
With our audience in mind, let us talk about design. Allow me to quote:
Ten Principles for Good Level Design
And to quote one of the comments:
04:23 - Good level design is fun to navigate.
06:47 - Good level design does not rely on words.
10:46 - Good level design tells what to do but never how to do it.
13:35 - Good level design constantly teaches.
16:06 - Good level desing is surprising.
21:07 - Good level desing empowers the player.
25:16 - Good level desing is easy, medium, and hard.
28:13 - Good level desing is efficient.
32:55 - Good level desing creates emotion.
37:26 - Good level desing is driven by mechanics.
And I think we can easily argue that a map like Astro doesn't teach the player anything, is not surprising after 10 rounds or more, doesn't empower the player in any form and is only easy because of the huge crater that you are in with only a single point of entry.
In comparison to a competitive map which tries to constantly teach you new approaches, can surprise you because of that, can be both easy, medium and hard depending on the players (whether or not a player can 'utilise' the core principles of the map), can make a player feel empowered (when the player matters, and / or after a struggle takes out an expansions - or even snipes a ACU early on with some T1 that got caught off guard) and up to a point tells you what to do (clear expansions, etc).
As others have argued before, a map like Astro is of poor design. According to the original creator it was made in a matter of minutes and most of its re-productions don't have much more time spent on them. Let alone that a lot of what you learn in Astro is not applicable to any other map and may even make you play worse on all other maps in comparison to the moment when you started to play Astro.
When we hook back to our audience: this is fine up to an extent. Astro is for casual players that want to play easy and casual games. Learning a new map, especially when coming from Astro, is a daunting task and hence people play maps like Astro.
About the objective and / or subjective notion - take note that a lot of these points can be objectively determined: a map with multiple paths, multiple expansions, clear guidance with reclaim or other mechanics can, up to an extent, objectively be called of better 'style' or more competitive than other maps using the criteria of the last video. Just as some games are objectively better than other games.
And I'd like to end with that just because I think Astro is of bad design, doesn't mean that the map won't fill. Of course it fills - it takes the game, runs it through a grinder until that the game was intended to be is crumbled to dust and you end up with a more simplified version of the same game. Less tactics, less thinking, more casual. Which is fine on its own, but should certainly not become more common than it already is.
Last but not least: the original GPG maps are almost all competitive maps with expansions, clear guidance, reclaim at interesting locations (such as the center) etc. That is how the original creators intended the game, and that is the type of game that I, and many others on this forum, wishes to play. If I wanted to play something else then I would divert to another game.
Also - to everyone else reading this: please participate in the discussion or don't participate at all. Sending in memes or one liners of any kind is not helping anything or anybody.
Now please, it is your turn in this game of endless chess.
Disclaimer: the video's are with FPS games in mind, but to me RTS games aren't that far off when it comes to gameplay design.