It's the use of "compression" term confusing. Generally, compression is ALWAYS lossless since its purpose is to decrease the data length and later restore it to original shape and meaning. GIF, PNG, JPEG, etc have all lossless image compression. However, before this compression occurs, JPEG does a frequency-domain quantization, with the "quality" parameter denoting how many components are removed (how much information is being cut out). You get a significant drop in file size but it may introduce artifacts which become more visible on images where most of the information is stored in contrasting lines (sketches, etc) rather than in textures (photos, etc), even with quality 100%. There is lossless-JPEG, though, but I can't speak for it.
What kind of detail could be added in a side-view? Higher resolution, yeah...but what else?
A lot! It gives viewers/players completely new perspective to look at the map (rather than "here be deck D"). And since Minstrel is monolithic and actually shaped like a starship, I think it is worth trying.
*snip*
Hey, if you notice I took that term in qoutes, you'll see it is used just to mimic your pondering about things like it being commercial and developed for 15 years - things that do not change the fact the product is distributed as trialware. You probably meant with that it is not some bullshit program written by certain person to make quick buck off it, but a complete package supported by a company for over a decade that is worth the money you pay for it; still, the point was about trialware (and patented algorithms) in general, not about commercial status of programs and their quality.
PS. I suggest we stop arguing.