I like the colors on the revised map a lot. I think they are very synchronous with the region and the theme. Really nice work.

It looks like you used a cloud layer to make the forests, which may be why people are confusing it with mountains? I used a different technique to make forests in GIMP for this map:

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=5622

1. Select the wooded regions
2. Feather the selections
3. Fill with correlated RGB noise (filter->noise->rgb noise and check the correlated option)
4. Blur slightly (maybe 2-5 px)
5. Duplicate the layer
6. Emboss
7. Set the layer to overlay
8. Use a threshold on the other layer to create the colored sections

That will give you a different texture for the woods that you may or may not like better. I may not have accurately got that all right, btw, so you may have to play with the technique to make it work for you.