I support Falconius' proposal, and I made a potential plot-map of the world with the highest votes:

World Proposal plots.png
It's rough, but you get the idea.

The problem with squares or hexes, is that there are tidbits of land that are left out or in a different space entirely. Sure you can claim more than one spot, but then that's kind of a pain in the ass. If you can just choose a region, with reasonable borders, it might make the mapping process a little easier. That's my opinion though.

I mainly changed the grid where small=>medium islands were to make it easier, also where there were interesting coastal features. As, presumably, you'd want them to be in one map instead of several. I tried not to touch the land, but there are definitely parts that might benefit from irregular plots.

I think part of the issue is the map itself. There's a lot of long, snaky islands, which cover a lot of terrain, but ultimately might be easier mapped as a whole. What do you guys think?