I'll take the silence as a not entirely terrible thing, and hope it won't be stepping on too many toes to post again after only comments from the meatsphere, since I'm accompanying it with what I'd consider a major update after working on it off and on for a week.
Based on a comment about the water not reading, I expanded the size by 3x2 times, added a full moon to make the lighting a little less jarring for a nighttime scene, and generally tried to make the piece better. Since my main lighting source is now behind, I probably need to redo the shading of the hills. Lesson learned: Get the scene more defined first, rather than last. This just progressed all weird.
I'm a bit happier with the sidewalk, but I'm still not entirely happy with it. This time, I'm not quite sure how to improve it.
New Reference:
Some random googled image of the moon:
http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/images/d3/FullMoon.jpg (warning: Hi Res)
Stars were randomly placed.