I think you are spot on about the reason for change in management.
What Apple has needed and needs more in the future is partnerships. It is the ONLY real failure of the entire Maps project. There are plenty of data providers around the world who Google relies on for mapping data that Apple simply never approached before launch but have started to reach out to now.
I suspect you're going to see a rapid improvement in the quality of the data over this coming year.
While it's true that there are "plenty" of map data providers, there are _very few_ that deal with wide swaths of the world. Navteq and TeleAtlas were the go-to providers for worldwide coverage, but you've seen what TeleAtlas data looks like and Navteq isn't going to sell their data to Apple for any amount of money with Microsoft (via Bing) and Nokia backing them.
No, the magic is that there are tens of thousands of excellent data sources around the world. Google has spent the time and money pulling those data sources together into the best geographic database in the world.
Sure, Apple can reach out to regional data providers and try to merge the data into their own dataset (which is what they have done so far -- look at the legal notices for the Maps app to see all the sources they've got so far), but it takes a lot of time to call up each state, county, province, city all over the world and ask or buy every last drop of geodata they have. Once they have it, they have to merge it into their existing data. Google does this with the help of fancy algorithms and boatloads of volunteers and relatively low-paid laborers in India. They also have related products to trade for geodata. Want a discount on your city's Google Apps for Domain? Send us a DVD full of your land records and we'll give it to you for free! Already have Google Apps? How about a free license to Google Earth Enterprise?
Bottom line: Google has spent the time and built the technology to beat Apple to the geodata punch. Google is at least 3 years ahead of Apple and Apple can't catch up with money alone: dealing with governments (for their data) will simply take time.
What Apple has needed and needs more in the future is partnerships. It is the ONLY real failure of the entire Maps project. There are plenty of data providers around the world who Google relies on for mapping data that Apple simply never approached before launch but have started to reach out to now.
I suspect you're going to see a rapid improvement in the quality of the data over this coming year.