Few map improvement ideas
 

Pinch to zoom in and out on map

New options button on the side which has all the viewing options such as friends, guild members, and all people.

Add a few more options to get rid of guild flags and names on tower, and pins.

Add more pins to places and make it so when you tap them you get a description of the place.

Era has zoom...and I totally agree, I always am disgusted by the maps simplicity.

Your gang members appear on friends map without adding them.

And have more specific filters for shops and stuff like era does.

Very outdated (have to update it once in a while) but here you already got the most shops. Since there have not been that much updates for shops, you should find (almost) everything in there.
http://www.graalians.com/forums/showthread.php?t=373

What would be the whole point of the zoom thing

You can see the whole map if you want to, or zoom in on a particular area.