For an initiation to annotation, this was a good project. It clearly demonstrated the advantages of annotation for truely detailed maps. ArcMap can dynamicaly place labels and with enough time and patience a very satisfactory outcome can be acheived, but to reach a level of detail and accuracy suited to professional maps, annotations are critical. Labels that are intended to contour to natural features like rivers can suffer from the limited intelligence of ArcMap. Labels for curved features required a good deal of  adjustment to improve the appearence of the lable.
To the right are two final maps. The lower right map was prepared using the standard labels and annotations in ArcMap. The map, top right, is labeled using the Maplex extension. Although the map, prepared with dynamic labels and annotations in ArcMap, is more visualy attractive, it took far longer to label and did not contain as much detail.
For users of ArcMap who have access to, but have not used, the Maplex extension, it merits some serious investigation. To activate the Maplex extension click help in ArcMap and type in Maplex. If Maplex is available it will only take a few clicks of the mouse to begin testing this feature.