Oh, absolutely. I've always thought it was interesting that something as important as the Death Egg was so poorly represented. There's no art of it in the manual, nothing - they just kind of expect you to know what it is, and if you're lucky you can see a little 32x24 pixel preview of it. It seems to me that in general Sonic games were unusually tacit compared to other games of the time.
It's a player-friendly menu that was supposed to be published by every gaming magazine, though, so that's indeed what the players were supposed to think about the Death Egg's appearance.
I assume that this isn't the case here, only because we know that Sonic 2 isn't the complete vision the developers set it out to be (18 zones instead of 11). Multiple answers can be applied here as to why it wasn't represented much in Sonic 2, like development time or not wanting to spoil the surprise at the end. In a way you could say Sonic 3's Death Egg is the missing extension that the Sonic Team envisioned to be in Sonic 2.
Speaking of outside views, I'd love to see CPZ from the 'outside' - like, how it sits next to EHZ and ARZ. Some sort of map for Sonic 2's island would be pretty amazing to see.
The thing is though, a lot is left to be assumed in Sonic 2 because there are no level transitions, like Sonic 3&K. We really have no idea what exactly occurs between the end of act two and the beginning of the next zone. It's one of the reasons why I enjoy hacks like Sonic 2:S3 Edition, because it attempts to fill in those gaps.
Of course - what I'd like to see is somebody attempt to turn the classic series into a serialized fancomic, serious in tone (obviously with some comedy, as is to be expected of the franchise), that shows the complete journey through the original 3 games. It would be nice to see how somebody else imagines the transitions between these levels, as I have a very distinct idea in my mind of what it would be like.
Same reason they used Emerald Hill's graphics for Hill Top Zone, they felt they were spaced out far enough that the player wouldn't notice that they re-used the graphics. Also when I was a kid, Mystic Cave and Oil Ocean were where the game was very difficult for me. I never really found Chemical Plant all that difficult except for that jump before the boss. Once you figure out that you can basically run across it, or Spin Dash into the spring across it, it's easy, but even before I figured out that trick, I would just land on the blocks and wait for the water to rise so I could actually make the jump out.
