FFVII's world map had the best graphics and textures. The vehicle/character/airship response was a lot more precise too. FFVIII and FFIX were too slow when moving the camera angel.
As Doomgaze said, there was too much on the Mist Continent in FFIX. Things needed to be more spread out. FFVIII was good, the camera angels were too sensitive. As for the 8 and 16 bit world maps. Those were good, but nothing special to them.