Good news, everyone!
I just today finished with the map tool update that provides the satellite view properly and with all the bugs fixed. Additionally there's a new download dialog which allows you to
- specify the description text (spmapXXX.txt)
- specify the map id number (1-999)
- specify the map name
The created files are returned in a convenient ZIP package.
Map description text by default contains the URL of the downloaded map just in case you do the same as I did and lose precise coordinates where you created that map in.
New functionality also includes switching between map, combined and satellite view. In combined view you have a 50:50 mix of the map and the satellite view so you can still see the labels. The rotation is M (Map) -> (C) Combined -> (S) Satellite.
Enjoy, report back if anything goes terribly wrong! I had to use a lot of API requests to test and fix the bugs in the process, so if Google complains about those then you have to wait until the resources are free again.