Our site's AH maps are widely distributed on the internet, come up all the time in Google Image searches and many people actually use and believe them. I dare not think what would happen if the even more plausible-looking infographics caught on...
You're right, that is a cool way to do AH. I like the contemporary feel, much as I've always advocated that people should try to do more modern contemporary atlas style maps (or even Google Maps-looking maps) rather than doing Victorianesque ones all the time--it's a bigger shock to the system of the viewer when it's a more familiar style.
On the actual infographic, I like how San Marino can into coastline
I'm not sure if this would count as an infographic like that, but I did make this some time ago. Besides the typical stuff of showing geopolitical Europe in the 70s and who's got nukes and who doesn't, it also shows GDP per capita and the political system of European countries. Although I might need to work on the GDP per capita of the Eastern European states, but it's hard to tell.
[infographic]