You are a horrible, horrible tease, mr Frog. You know we don't even have the cloth map beta yet, and you're already doing a 'making of' piece? 
It's amazing to see how much the game has changed from one month to the next. I'm very impressed with the work, though there are elements of the Oct and Nov 2008 screens that I wish had made it into the current build. The Nov one is horrible zoomed in but looks very painting-like zoomed out, and the Oct one looks almost too simple and abstract but certainly beautiful in its own right.
I have to agree with the comments regarding cities, particularly that the Oct 08 city is the only one that looks like a proper city, whereas the others look like either a collection of generic prefab modules (Nov 08, Mar 09) or a jumbled nonesense of buildings with a wall around them. (latest build) The June 09 build seems the best in that regard, I remember some other screenshots from around that time looked much more city-like than some of the latest screens.
The more I look at it, though, that last screenshot is kind of a bad example. The bizarre layout of the town is really quite confusing. This city, which I think may be the same city but later in the game, looks much better:
https://www.elementalgame.com/Screenshots/Screens_8-28-09-7.jpg
