Brad, you said: “Of course you should not plan or navigate using these expired charts, but they can be nice to look at sometimes.”
That conclusion assumes that all of the information on a raster chart is available on the NOAA ENC’s and that is simply not true. The land feature details on the NOAA ENC’s is almost completely absent. By contrast the Canadian Hydrographic Service ENC’s now show land elevations and other features that are revealed by adjusting the zoom settings on the chart. That is not the case with the NOAA ENC’s. Has there been any consideration by NOAA to add land feature details to their ENC’s?
I routinely look at land features (elevation contours, peaks) as part of my piloting during my travels, so it is important for navigation, IMO.
Jim