(Please don't take offense to my disagreements)
Actually I live in a neighboorhood where people nearby on the lake have docks (albiet it is just really a small wooden platform that shoots out enough to have a boat on), but I digress.
I don't know what you mean by tone down, make lighter or darker?
I've seen brown on many maps.
Africa is Brown on Classic.
Congo is Brown for Africa
Library is Brown in CCU
Voodoo Bayou is brown in USApocalypse
Scotland is Brown in British Isles
There are two that are kinda Brown in Germany
Middle Earth and Montreal have brown too but I'm tired of looking at this point..
Anyway I think brown being bad is more of a matter of personal preference, but you may be right. I'm probably going to have a lot of one day votes to decide most of the color issues.
If anyone has colors they really like and know the Hex codes for you could give them to me and I could show you how it would look on parts of the map.
The neighboorhood was really drawn on a neighboorhood map I found (that didn't have a copyright, I checked), so while I probably could rework the shape it would take me a while because, frankly, I lack artistic tallent.
I did everything in paint (LOL I know), I was going to switch to photoshop once a lot of the basic things were right, I just find paint really easy for a base.