Oh, yes: an evolving map. TRhe only reason not to put that in is because of the dev time, but it wouldn't take that much, and if they tried to pull a "no time" I would see it as an excuse or lack of imagination.

Some major things that other civ's have accomplished would probably be noteworthy as welll.  For example some city gaining the help of a dragon probably wouldn't stay quiet for long.  Would also be cool if you could spread rumors either with spies or something. 

Oh! Yeah. Great battles could leave landmarks. Destroyed cities could become ruins which could house monsters and treasure (related to what the city was) and also could be cleared out and reinhabited.

That's a really cool idea. My only worry is that if they did impliment a system like that, how diverse could it be? If a giant battle leaves humps in the earth where there are mass graves, or all the area becomes fertile because of all the bodies (or possibly the other route and becomes more desolate or "evil"). While huge magic battles cause some other effect.

In theory I'm entirely for it, I think it would be an amazing game mechanic. I'm just worried that if it wasn't diverse enough it would only be interesting the first dozen times or so it happend...That being said, I'd still love to see it those first dozen times.

It does make me wonder how often you can change the names for certain things.  in single player, I see no problem, but I can imagine it could become confusing pretty quickly if you constantly rename your towns and heroes.   (or rename other people's towns)    I'd be  interesting in finding a system that works though (even if its just 'name the hero on hire).  The benifit of adding titles midgame is if you have that 'lucky bastard' hero that seems to somehow not-die against a dragon or something to that extent, you can name his as such. 

Maybe not in multiplayer, but let the player name landmarks (mountain ranges, forests etc.) as well as heroes and towns (optional, of course). Even better would be forests and mountains begin nameless and get a name after something important happens there, but this might be too much work for the devs. Enemy towns should be re-namable if you want as well. I think titles are something the game should give, it makes them feel more authentic. And of course you can rack up multiple titles and choose the one you like to be more prominent. They would be simple like "dragonslayer" for killing a dragon, "unburnt" for surviving a dragon's breath, "ruthless" for executing POWs, "night sword" for fighting at night... there are hundereds of possibilites. 

I have a related question to titles: do heroes and other characters age in Elemental or is it more game-y than sim-y? 

EXCELENT Idea.

Not to beat a drum here, but, on one of the Total War games on the Map after a Great battle there would some times be a small marker saying who fought there and who won. Having undead rise from the battlefield would be a killer idea. Hell yeah!!!