These mechanics that drop raw currency are always going to be favorable for the masses. No setup, no wondering what items to pickup and what to leave, etc.
Mapping on the other hand requires strategy and planning, and most importantly a build that can do most, if not all map mods. The difference between doing alch and go and being able to run 8 mod corrupted maps is night and day in terms of currency generation.
I made more currency, faster doing mapping, but ToTA was brainless and quick. But the amount of Harvest juice you can farm per hour is nuts with the new Atlas.
Speaking of that the new Harvest Keystone makes it easy to force Yellow crops you can upgrade into without needing the more expensive Yellow lifeforce compass. Buy purple or blue compasses, block the other color (block blue if you bought purple, purple if you bought blue), take the seventh gate to use Harvest on the map device, take growing hordes and eater altars, buy pack size compasses (these are dirt cheap) and map. When you go into a sacred grove you focus on upgrading the yellow plants. 2% of your sacred groves will get bricked with only a single color, but the rest drop a lot of yellow lifeforce over the long run.