I will list the maps that I think have a good chance between now and release of the next version of getting improved enough to make it in:
halfes-wfa - i think this probably going to be the best map of the new crop. couple reasons. Its an original design. The flow is good, its got a 1 way flow from base to base, but there are myriad routes once you get to the exterior of the base. FPS are strong, and the visuals are good (not great but good). Changes? already talked to Shadowspawn who took this map over from Goa. take out the fog/teleporter route. Its cool but it short circuits the flow of the map. remove the paks at mid or have them respawn very slowly. Sentries at midfield are bad and give all engies a bad rep.
Spiders Bite "spbite-wfa": This map has a good flow, the flagroom is well constructed and unique enough too. Its got nice routes from midfield to flagroom and there are choices you can make once you enter a base. 3 different entries to flagroom. None really enormously favored over the others... although the lava route and the jump pad route both give defenders a Line of Sight and warning. Recommended fixes: there is no water anywhere. Add water at mid and near flagroom. Location ents are all colored red. Blue side loc ents should be colored blue. Clips on door frames. Slow down or remove the packs in the flagroom. Since there is a spawn right into the flagroom, I would suggest removing the packs or making them spawn at 20 second intervals.
Torrent - could be best of the new crop as well. The map is a loose recreation of the Eastwood map for WF. Its a nice interpretation and has a good flow as a result. The looks are "prostar caliber". The sound was the only annoying aspect. The rain sound is too loud and the lightning flashes may cause seizures. Atmosphere was nice and the layout was good.
Urbandecay - played a scrim on an early beta, then Rav re-did it significantly based on our feedback. This map is money. Needs more testing however.
Crusade - Very promising. The midfield and courtyard areas of the map are way too laggy however. I get 50 FPS on my 1.4 ghz and I shudder to think what RAFIO would get for FPS. The lag is almost 100% because of the rain effect. The architecture is simple so I can't think its anything else. What about the "space" between the bases at midfield -- if you fall in this you die. however you can jump across this if you are moving even moderately fast. The chainlink bridge is kind of annoying. These need to be addressed b4 i can look at it more.
Return is slightly laggy and I don't like the flow of the map very much. I don't think it would be a great fit, but on the other hand its a decent map. Needs more testing and I wonder if the midfield could be less laggy.
Ravfort: I think this is a great looking map. Graphically its on par with the best. But the layout doesn't really capture my imagination. The map also suffers because its a smallish design. Designed for 12-14 players or so. I wonder if some changes could make this a 16 player map (which is what our pubs usually are at). The merit of a match-only map are debateable. Because it creates a barrier to entry for newbie clans and for server admins that want to host a server to have to add custom match only maps.
Welthe - played welt a lot back in q2wf, and its a venerable design. The wfa version "welthe" where HE is huge edition, has an ugly look from the version I saw. But this is a good design and the flow of it will be unique to WFA players and attractive to nostalgic WF vets. Definitely a shoe-in if it just got a fresh coat of paint (textures).
cruel2 - not sure if this was changed since the version that was in 2.9 and had some popularity, esp. in Europe. But I liked cruel sorta. Textures may be an issue.
2fortL - played early versions months ago and naraka worked with us on making the flagroom approaches less turtlish and also worked a lot on fixing bugs. But I haven't tested the latest version yet. I heard there were texture pack issues since we moved the texture pack out in 3.0.
The rest of the maps found in the beta map pack have some basic flaws or don't bring enough new to the table. If the authors contact me individually I can talk about it more.
You can get them HERE and judge for yourselves though by testing the maps on either Peng's prison sex or Satjutsin private. Stop by #bws if you want the pw to Sat private.
New maps on the horizon? The odds are not in the favor of maps that we haven't gotten to test yet. If the map has been through rigorous testing its got a better chance, but i know maps like Golf-WFA, and Diehard's alpha "cbases", as well as any other maps that are cooking out there better get released soon so that we can weigh them against the rest of the crop.
overall, maps I prefer are remakes (maps from q2wf that had a tried and true flow/design) and even moreso -- maps that bring something new to the table in terms of design and flow. The maps should look good. Feedback on our maps from Q3 community has been negative. Especially about the texture jobs in our maps being distracting and poor. I think a lot of our maps look good now, but early versions of wfa got a deservedly bad rap.