Wow...

Some really great information and insight, thank you everyone, particularly Mark and Tiana.

I'm still leaning towards the CC3+ bundle in spite of its shortfalls. As Mark mentioned in his post, even without using the program, the ability to use the symbol sets in other programs is probably worth the cost of admission alone. Coupled with the extras included in the bundle, namely the Token, Castles and Temples & Tombs packs it really is good value and a heap of symbols...

I would call my maps 'procedural' rather than 'artistic', meaning that by and large they were created using Ps techniques; filters, path tricks, layer masks and effects and so on, more than artistic skill. Speaking of which, I'm quite sure that many of the fine cartographers who grace these pages and those in many, many RPG books and games have developed shortcuts, their own personal brushes and or objects, that they use in their maps. I can't imagine them re-drawing differing, individual tree types for every map as an example...

One of the things I was looking forward to using in GIMP, and Krita now that GIMP is dead to me, is animated brushes, but alas, that requires some artistic skill, which to be brutally honest, I lack. I could import CC3+'s symbols into either of these programs and try them out I suppose...that might be an interesting experiment for a later date...

Anyhow, I'm going to bite the bullet and spend some time getting to know CC3+ with a Winebottle! I think for my purposes; creating the mix of maps I need for my plans using Roll20 and maintaining my old-school maps for my publisher, the CC3+ bundle will do the jobs nicely, and if it doesn't, well it's only a little over $50, I'll go without a couple of take-out dinners!

As an aside, I Googled 'Campaign Cartographer Maps' and was pleasantly surprised by many, certainly not all, of the maps created. Looking at an old annual, I believe it was the 2015 one, there are OSR styles, a cross hatching dungeon one , very much like Dyson's and a host of others, and a LoTR, Greyhawk kind of overland one, which I will no doubt use heavily...