Alright, @Tagada, you asked for a lot of information, so here's a long post that discusses things and provides several examples of things I've done:
But, I'll start off by explaining something first; knowing what makes maps good (including understanding the impacts of various things on gameplay/variance/aesthetics/etc) has a lot of relevance to mapping, improving map gen, and map pool creation/selection. So, there were certainly times when I gathered data (such as via talking to people or creating publicly available polls - that I admittedly should have logged better) to learn more about community preferences for mapping that taught me valuable insights/understandings that helped me to improve map gen and would also help me to be a better PC. I have learned a lot about FTX's system, and I have certainly improved my understanding of what makes some maps more desirable than others over time, and I've also passed on some of what I've learned to others along the way.
If you look over my maps, my mapping quality has certainly improved over time as I've learned more about what makes for good gameplay/etc. In fact, here's a recent mapping tourney which I created a new map for (I also made lots of new custom props (including lots of colorful Autumn trees!) that will be included in a new FAF update for all mappers to use in FAF), and my map received the highest total rating for gameplay/variance (not aesthetics) in the tourney. So, I have certainly improved my understanding of gameplay/variance/mapping a lot over time.
Anyway, while I have learned a lot about FTX's system for evaluating maps, and I see its value for certain niches, I have observed that FTX's system caters to a particular type of FAF experience, which is not what everyone wants. A decent portion of people do want it, and so, I think the types of map pools that appeal to that group (of satisfied current ladder/TMM players/etc) should continue to exist for those people. However, I also consider maps from other players' perspectives that are conflicting with FTX's. There are some good reasons why global is so much more popular than ladder/TMM, and a large part of it is that ladder/TMM doesn't satisfy many of those perspectives, even when they're desired by the large majority of FAF players... So, I would like to make TMM better by offering additional options that are more suited to satisfying people with different types of preferences. That involves having different perspectives/criteria for evaluating maps for some new optional map pools that I plan to add.
Most of my data gathering has been from asking a lot of people questions and talking to people. If it was worthwhile, I could spend several hours/days gathering a vast collection of evidence of countless conversations I've had with hundreds if not thousands of people in Discord, FAF lobbies, FAF games, etc where I was asking people questions about what they want in a map, or what they want changed, or what they disliked, or what they thought about the gameplay on it, etc. That seems really excessive. So, if you really want some massive quantity of evidence, you are welcome to go and watch all my replays where I hosted my maps (and got feedback and often made changes accordingly) as well as a number of my mapgen games where I asked people questions as well. If you read all of the chat in all of my replays/lobbies, I believe you'd literally see thousands of examples of me asking people for feedback regarding things like what they like about a given map, what they would think should be changed, if they have any suggestions, etc. I have done some polls as well, but that's honestly a small minority of the feedback I've gathered, and most of them are buried in old conversations. Here's a couple random polls anyway:
Mapping Features
2v2 TMM Sharing
Here are some examples of suggestion threads that I have started based on trying to address problems that I've found via feedback I've gotten:
Create a casual noob-friendly matchmaker queue (to increase player retention)
Create A New Matchmaker Councillor Position
Unofficial tournaments should be allowed on the forums
In case it's not obvious by now, most of the FAF community (and consequently most of the people I talk to) are not really active on the forums. That communication divide is something I want to address with changes that encourage and lessen barriers to participation.
Here is some of my activism from this very election from before I decided to run for PC.
Here are some examples of work I've done on map gen:
https://i.imgur.com/nx3sj6R.png
https://i.imgur.com/U7qZQyR.png
https://i.imgur.com/qmiymt5.png
https://i.imgur.com/BMwo9pD.png
https://i.imgur.com/VQjhcVT.png
Now, I have responded with a ton of information to a large variety of questions. If the same people (who have been questioning/criticizing/nitpicking me while basically ignoring/disregarding FTX's issues/flaws) want to keep bombarding me with questions/criticisms while continuing to basically ignore FTX's issues/flaws, then I will draw the line somewhere, as I have already provided way more information than I should reasonably need to in this 280+ post-long forum thread that is nearly the longest thread on these forums already despite only being 11 days old.