I remember when I was reading all those magazine reviews for D&D I came across a lot of criticism of the automappers as they were becoming more common. Some people felt they were "cheating" or that they made the games too easy; others felt that making their own maps was a creative and enjoyable process, whereas others found it tedious and wasteful of their time. It's funny, though, that the automaps became so common precisely when graphics technology was allowing for more diverse tile sets (and graphics in general) that allowed people to better distinguish their environment, thus obviating the need for so much mapping. I'd argue that it's much harder to navigate Wizardry because all the walls and such look the same, whereas later games have unique graphics for each area.

Then again, I find myself constantly having to look at the map in Far Cry 2 because even with all that detail, it's easy to get lost and disoriented. I guess that's the point, but it would be nice to have at least some areas that were easy to navigate without constant reference to a map.