Kildor: if you could provide a save with XVI active, that would be helpful.
In terms of topographic rendering, I had been going more for the "classroom globe" look than "earth from space." Changing the ocean bumpmap is easy enough; we can tone down the amount of topographic depth for the land as well, if people want more realism. I'd like to introduce clouds/weather systems eventually, but that's likely to be a fairly complex and involved project, and I'm not sure how feasible it is at the moment.
There are no oceanic missions right now anyway, so the ocean rendering is purely aesthetic. On land, mountains/plains generate different battlescape maps, so there is an actual gameplay effect.