In reply to RX-78:
I noticed that, ta. Still seems quite pricey though. More so if you think about the price per square meter - one county at a time you only have to have a few before it seems daft not stumping up a bit more for the whole country.
I haven't had a play with the self-selecting thing. (It seems I'd have to download and run a Windows-only app, so even just having a look at it is a bit of a faff.) Is the shape completely arbitrary? Could you select a big strip of coastline for example?
At the moment my plans are incredibly vague, and ideally I'd like to spend a bit of time poring over maps to narrow it down a bit. (The way my 20 quid subscription to the OS allows me to do throughout GB and the IoM - and even without, I could always get a look at the maps via Bing and various other websites.)
Can anyone suggest any other options besides Viewranger?