To be honest, the islands are ugly. Not only that, but they are a tragic waste of potential with game features. Perhaps we could give them geographic features, like strategic ridges, or small coves with a ship spawner (maybe even a type of ship not available on the spawn coast?), caves, or dense forest.
We don't even need to limit ourselves to such straightforward changes. We could add land-bound game features, like capture-the-flag type things that could give team-bonuses to whoever took it. Heck, treasures that aren't always worth 100 would be interesting, with small chests worth 50 and large ones worth 150. To make stops on the island a little more interesting, chests would have to spawn in random places, or failing that, at least more than one pre-scripted place per island.
This suggestion also calls for notably bigger islands, since it wouldn't make much sense to try to fit all of this inside a few seconds worth of a ROBLOXian's stride.
Of course, I'm aware that development on Pirate Wars has been discontinued, and that I'm talking to myself because I am the only person in the world that feels this strongly about this game, but I ask anyway- what do you guys think? Would the team bonuses unbalance the game?