7 months later and no one has answered your questions. I searched for a program to convert map to png but couldn't find one. Sound Spectrum still has map editing software on their extras page. The update page says png replaces map files. Why drop support for map files?
I just uninstalled GF to install the beta and there are maps and pngs in the colormap folder I would assume that by removing the pngs the original maps would still work if not why would they still be included?