I was thinking about this earlier. Perhaps not half sized, but maybe would could go for smaller maps concentrating on certain areas. For instance, since we already have a Guadalcanal map, perhaps we could make a map that focuses on the other islands, or portions of islands. I made this last night to see what it would look like if we used the current New Guinea map size:
Here we have the New Georgia Island, Vella Lavella, Choiseul(did not have any airbases) and part of Bougainville.
I read the whole thread about the slot on Ubi, and they had suggestions to do similar smaller maps. Another idea was to have the east coast of New Guinea and New Britain Island (for Rabaul). Another suggestion was a Bougainville to Rabaul map.
As I already calculated, if we were to use a map size like that of Hawaii, we would be working on a very large territory, even if it is mostly water. The image files would be 7750x5050 pixels. I dont know how that would transfer into loading time, since Hawaii uses a smaller map that concentrates on the islands and tiles the rest with water to get the full 1550x1010km that we have in the game.
I'd have to ask Hawk what the other colours on his map represent in terms of map size. One of them is most likely Kurland. Yellow is Hawaii, Red is New Guinea.