As one of the comments at your link shows, this was originally developed at Stanford:

http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/routemaps/

I prefer the traditional style maps because if you deviate from the expected route you still have a map of the area.

For example a GPS device will give sometimes give you a ridiculous number of turn by turn directions in a row. Go 100 feet merge right, go 200 feet merge left, go 50 feet and take a right, go 300 feet and make a left.