strange, I didn't have any problems with the google maps yet...
currently it's not possible to use Virtual Earth,
but if you want to try to implement it, I can give you the Googlemaps plugin sources for free
yep,
there no loading trouble with your gmap plugin because it use an api key, so google servers know who's loading map tiles,
people like shanti had surely mistaken something else...or experimented a time where map were updated in google servers...
by the way satellite map tiles had been updated (the sea color is different now)
well implementing Virtual Earth is very easy,
you just have to add an extra Umap component and add a xml parameter to switch from google flash api to Umap,
but it will double the plugin weight... i can give it a try if the source is available for free
See U