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Ea,
Keep in mind the context of the statement I made. The Kindle, left to its own devices, does not dither very well. All that means is that, if you just stick a color photo or a 256 shades of gray photo on a Kindle, with no other adjustments, it has been my experience that they do not display very well.
It is very easy to take a map, or a photo, or line art, and make it display very well on a Kindle. Right now, I would say it takes me about 30 seconds (more or less) to take a color image and prepare it for Kindle display.
So, even with a book with 30 illustrations, that's only 15 minutes, and I think the time is well spent.
I first noticed the problem (or what I see as a problem) when viewing one of the Beatrix Potter books. I noticed that some of the illustrations were sharp and crisp ... and some were very faded and hard to see.
When I looked at the same book on my PC, the reason became clear, the crisp images were black and white line art, the faded ones were color, and most of the colors had the same contrast value, such that they were all merged into the same shade of gray on the Kindle.
However, what wallcraft says is correct, if you are planning a book based on it displaying best with future technology, then by all means, leave the images large and in color. They will take up more room on the ebook, and the images will not display as well with the current technology, but you can't have everything.
Me .... I'd probably do an edition optimized for e-ink screens and one for color screens and let the consumer decide which they want. I don't happen to care all that much for color maps in my literature (unless the color adds some information). As I recall, all of the maps in my Lord of the Rings paperbacks were black and white line art, and they suited me just fine.
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