I am working on a web mapping demo for a customer and I tried to reproduce the look-and-feel of Google Maps.
It is not yet perfect and things are still missing but I believe it is on a good track. If anybody interested I publish SLD (Style Layor Descriptor) files for download. Everything here is done with open standards from the OGC, thanks to GeoServer and PostGIS (BTW, everything on a Mac).
Click for fullsize