Hue is applied to the entire sheet, so there can't be a way to get the numerical value, because it isn't just a single colour you will be modifying. One part of the sheet may be green, another red, and the hue effect applies to everything so there simply isn't a fixed starting value. What you apply as hue is a modifier that will be applied to the colors on the sheet, so with a positive value, red will become more yellow, green will become more blue and so on. Look at the color wheel to anticipate the changes, the larger the value for hue, the larger the shift along the wheel. Remember, you aren't editing a single color by specifying its HSL value here, you're applying a HSL change over all the colors on the sheet. This is very different from just setting the current color in a paint program using HSL values instead of RGB.

When compared to the rgb matrix process, it's a different way of accomplishing a similar, but not identical thing. Hue operates on the HSL colorspace, and shifts colors along the color wheel. RGB martix operates on the RGB spectrum, and allows you to manipulate the RGB components of the color, and even express one color component based on the quantity of another component, something impossible to do with the HSL effect. RGB Matrix is more powerful, but also more complex, HSL can be easier to use to get more subtle tone changes.

Those spikes are miter joints, the issue happens when nodes are placed to create very sharp corners on wide lines. It happens more easily on highly detailed coastlines.

One way to get rid of them is to manually go in and remove some nodes from the coastline to fix it. Remember, it is caused by two close nodes at the base of the spike, there isn't a node at the end. And note that you only need to edit the coastline, which is a separate entity from the landmass. This problem doesn't happen to filled entities like the landmass is.

The second option is to just drop the coast outline altogether, and use a glow effect on the landmass instead, as this completely avoids the problem.

To elaborate a bit on JimP's answer here. Symbols are by default scaled to 1/1000th of the map width in overland maps. There are several good reasons for this, but if you want your symbols smaller, you can permanently change the default symbol scale for a map by going to :CC2PRESETS:. The value found here is the value that will be used when you click the set normal button Jim refers to. The "default" scale for symbols in general is 1, but be aware that trying to map a map of that size using symbol scale 1 will be quite a lot of work. The small symbols may not look as good either when the map is zoomed out.

Percent of View is a very useful effect setting if working with the map in CC3+ is the primary goal rather than exporting it. You can for example use it to ensure that things like text glow are the same absolute size as you zoom in and out, instead of having it almost disappear as you zoom out or overly large as you zoom in. But it is less useful when you are producing exports, although there are some instances it works there too, but it is important to realize that this setting means that what you get out isn't the same as on screen (not necessarily a bad thing).

But yea, it shouldn't be the default setting, that's not the optimal choice.

Just to point out one thing regarding that dialog, CC3+ always show the current text properties in the dialog (as in those that will be used if you create a new text entity, not the ones of the selected entity). So when you try a second time on the same text, it is normal that it still shows the same values.

This can be confusing at first, but it is very helpful when you need to change multiple entities in a row. The actual properties of an entity can always be found using either list on the entity, or by using :CC2KEEP: on the entities, making the properties of the entity the current ones, thereby making them the default values in dialogs.