[jokerthief]

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When it comes to placing states on the map, there's also the practical concern of American states (mostly) being lumped together in a solid mass of land with little distinct geographical features to help separate them

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Because American states are (mostly) lumped together on the solid land mass of North America, whereas European nations are not lumped together on the solid land mass of... Europe?

Plenty of states' borders are drawn along geographical features, principally rivers. Believing that "American states are (mostly) lumped together on the solid land mass of North America" is completely ludicrous and basically describes every continent on the planet. I think your misconception comes mostly from scale, where several US states are the same size as several EU nations, but the sheer span of the US makes it look like those states are identical in terms of terrain where in Europe they'd encompass several different climates.

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Note the bolded part. Europe has peninsulas (Iberian, Italian, Scandinavian and more), islands (British Isles, Iceland, Malta, Cyprus and more), large inland seas (Black sea, Baltic sea, Mediterranean), more prominent mountain ranges, and more countries adjacent to oceans. It's really not that close.

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I wasn't aware that the Mediterranean and Baltic were inland Sea's.