Is learning the shapes of countries really all that important? I would have thought by the time the shape matters, you’re looking at/learning the details of the country, at which point you’re not looking at a map of the entire world anymore anyway.

Who actually uses it as a map though? It’s usually only seen briefly in apps, or in various symbols, or on a classroom wall. As a symbol, having the rights sizes would be a significant improvement. In an app, people will zoom in anyway, so at least they’d passively see the correct proportions when zooming out, instead of getting a false impression. In a classroom, it would seem all that more importantly to not give false impressions to kids.