Unvanq seems to layer all pk3s at the same spot in a virtual filesystem, where all textures end up in /textures, maps in /maps, etc. I assume this is how Quake did it because it brings advantages such as being able to 'displace' files from one pk3 with newer ones from another (for eg updates).
For maps however it's a little messy. Map pk3 resources are generally (AFAIK) like a 'local' resource, because maps don't seem to have dependencies on one-another, but they get piled together anyway. The maps by other people I have looked at try to neaten things a little by storing their resources in subdirectories of the top level ones (like /textures and /maps). For example: Nano stores its textures in /textures/nano .
None of this really matters for players, however it requires mappers to either keep one project's resources spread across many folders in their ~/.unvanquished equivalent or compress everything into a pk3 every time a change is made. This is driving me crazy.
Keep in mind I come from a game dev environment where almost everything is done through as single IDE-like tool :P. During this process all map resources are in their own neat directory, not inversely spread across others, with only a single layer of resource inheritance.
Am I doing things in a silly way? Have I failed to notice some really obvious way around this? At the moment all I can think of is fuse-mounting a pk3 as a folder neatly holding things. Hopefully the filesystem rehaul mentioned in the latest news update will be nice. I'm probably turning this into more of a headache than it needs to be anyway.
Thankyou if you can help :)