I like having the GPS for those county roads that are poorly marked and have multiple names. The map often has a different name than the street sign and not everyone knows that County Road G44 = Highway 53 = 344th Street.
I agree that a GPS just isn't the same as a map in seeing the big picture. I can zoom and scroll around but the screen isn't big enough to do it justice. I also wish there was a way to set a specific route like you can in aviation GPS units by adding set waypoints along the way.
My Nuvi lets me send over bookmarked locations from Google Maps, but it would be really cool if you could draw out and design a route in Google Maps and send it to the GPS!