Google Maps - add content but where's my public content?

Google Maps Directory lets me select items to incorporate into "my map", where "my" is one of my Google identities. I like the distance measure, etc.

There are a few things I haven't figured out yet:

1. How do I find useful things to add? There are a lot of maplets, and they're ordered only by popularity. It doesn't look like I can search by zip (to find those relevant to a particular area) and there isn't enough metadata associated with the maplets to support search anyway. Google needs to provide more views and allow others to develop maplet collections.
2. How do the things I create show up on other people's maps? I can create pictures which show up on Google Earth, but they don't appear on Google Maps. Likewise the bicycle trails and other items I mark as "public" don't seem to be accessible either -- at least not yet.

I assume these will get sorted out soon. Google Maps are pretty darned exciting. They'll be even better when they're integrated with Public Google Calendar (so one can find events in both space and time and switch space/time views, pending Google's incorporation of four dimensional maps ....).