Although having tiles and tilemaps does make the creation of levels easier, it also limits creativity, unless you decide to create your own tileset. In essence, each and every level will look the same. The question you need to ask is if you want a lot of similar, shitty levels every monkey can make, or less, but more unique and inspired, well-designed and thought-out levels.

Soldat didn’t have tilemaps, just decals, and I think that solution worked pretty well. There’s no point in the liero approach though, having to paint the whole level all over again if you have a set of standard items, like trees or sandbags.