Spending a Few Minutes in a Completely Alternate Reality

Today's bit of escapism: what if instead of our current 50 states with their borders based on whatever historical whimsies happened to cause them, we were a country made up of states based on our rivers? This Reddit user calls it a Gambia-style USA, and came up with this map:

You really must click that image to enlarge it for detailed viewing, or see it really huge on the original site.

The creator gave these caveats on the original post:

As implied by the title, my inspiration for this map is the country of the Gambia in West Africa, whose borders are largely set by a 20-mile buffer along the Gambia River. I imagine that, early in the growth process of the United States, a congressional decision was made to set up states according to 100-km buffers along major waterways; where these buffers overlapped or where they enclosed small unallocated spaces, the average-distance border between the states was used. For large unallocated spaces, generally in the Great Basin region, states were set up according [to] latitudes and longitudes (similar to our timeline). Ultimately, 77 states were created in the continental United States. The re-calculated election and demographic data hint at some of the implications of this arrangement. Enjoy!

Edit note:
- I realize now that I mislabelled the state following the Delaware river as Susquehanna instead of as Delaware. There should be a big Delaware and no Susquehanna state.
- There have been some questions about the names of states such as Iowa and Lumbee, among others. For states where either the waterway had already namesaked a city (such as Des Moines) or the waterway had a name that I did not like (such as Pee Dee or Cape Fear), I changed the name of the state to something else.

I admit I don't understand what they mean by "the average-distance border between the states was used.... states were set up according [to] latitudes and longitudes (similar to our timeline)." What timeline?

So of course I have some arguments with this person's fantasy country:

1. If they want to relabel Susquehanna to Delaware, then they have to shift the boundary, because parts of that are literally on the Susquehanna River (like Binghamton), not the Delaware, and those are two different watersheds. At least part of their nameless Pennsylvania state seems like it belongs with a reformulated Susquehanna, alongside a narrower Delaware, perhaps.
   
2. States shouldn't have names that are derogatory references to indigenous peoples' nations. Two examples are Sioux and Iroquois. (There may be others I'm not aware of.) Yes, sometimes people from those nations use those terms. It doesn't mean anyone else should.
3. They made Ithaca the state capital of Iroquois (in central New York), which is pretty funny, because it should obviously be Syracuse in terms of city size, centrality to the state, and easier access for people living there. Similarly, Saint Louis seems like a much better capital city for the giant Mississippi state than Memphis. And Terre Haute is the capital of Wabash instead of Indianapolis?... I'm starting to think this person has some axes to grind. (Oh, wow, I just started to look at the capitals in the West. It gets even worse! Like, why would Yuma at the far west end be the capital of the giant, elongated Colorado state? It's not anywhere near the center or anything.)
   
4. Why the heck is there such a thing as St. Mary up there at the east end of the Upper Peninsula? It's the smallest state in terms of population and third smallest by area. Why isn't it just part of Nicolet? I don't see any water-based reason when I view a map of the area. 
5. I'm ignoring the analysis of the Electoral College. In this alternate world, we wouldn't have one.
   

The writer didn't mention anything about Hawaii or Alaska. Maybe we wouldn't have colonized them either, I guess.

Well, that was a fun distraction.