From personal experience, having part of a map that you must name yourself is always a poor experience, it is so much easier to use a pre-made map if it has names.

Of course, not every minor street in a city map needs to be named, but having a good chunk of them named is always very helpful.

Should be doable with the Mercator Historical or Mercator Revisited annual styles.

Cool. I always love some good heraldry.

These looks great. You've got some very nice aesthetics and colors going on there.

That's a "Whole Drawing" effect. You can switch to those using the radio buttons right above the effects list in the sheets and effects dialog.