I haven't read the whole thread since it's damn long but I think this is absolutely necessary if osz2 is ever gonna be implemented, since there are TONS OF MAPS (even a lot from the thread's creator) that are just very VERY hard to read due to the BG being the same damn color than lots of hits.
Ok wait a second. What's the idea of "maps" to begin with? You make a map and people PLAYS them, and from my pov which is the one from a player who knows NOTHING about mapping, is that players should enjoy a map instead of dealing with stuff they don't like. That's why we actually play, to enjoy the whole thing, now, what's so fun of playing a map with grey hitcircles, grey background, kiai 24/7, flashy SB so you can't see a shit, etc? Nothing. Some people MAY actually like it (I'm pretty sure they're just a few since I've got many friends playing this and most of them if not all rage when playing a retardskinned map where you can't see a thing, and I'm talking about CASUAL players...), but anyways, the best idea would be to let each player to play each map however they want, I don't care if the mapper wanted to "make some artistic map", because I'm not interested in how the map looks but how thet map plays, as well as there is some other people who is interested in the opposite thing, or maybe in both, but in the end by not letting everyone play their way you just get people to not enjoy the game.
Inb4 bad english ftw ye.
And just so you get it guys, nobody plays any "hard" or "fun" map with BG/Skin/SB/Video, whenever I start playing something and like it the first thing I do (if I haven't already) is delete every damn element from the map so I can enjoy it, not that nobody cares but I will and lots of players will keep deleting everything so they can play with black/grey/whatever BG and their own skin (some even delete hitsounds I'm sure).