First, by way of explaning my interest; CYVR is my homebase airport and I use if to fly out and in regulary both in sim and IRL as a passenger. So I guess this is not a big deal if one is not familiar with the area but it is one of those annoyances that kills immersion when one is familiar with the local geography.
The altitude of the Google image (and my sim images) does not tell the whole story.
While Google may look like the Vector image, in reality much of the "apparent" land you can see due west of the airport and south of that due west of Richmond and then south to Delta is in fact shallow tidal flats. There are never any trees due west of CYVR although there may be mudflats there at low tide.
A zoomed in Google image tells a more accurate story with tidal flats clearly visible and a green salt-marsh border separates the airport from the water/tidal flats at the airport's western boundary. This narrow green boundary extends south beyond Richmond to Delta and south to the 49th parallel.
So in the sim, if you use Vector and take off from CYVR on 26L you will see a lot of farmland and trees as described above. In reality those tree and farm covered land masses are not there, ever. Without Vector there are no trees or farms, just water which is much more real.
In reality the no Vector image is a much cleaner representation of this particular piece of geography.
I hope that clarifies.
Cheers, Mike