The game Krosmaster Arena is similar to Imperial Assault in the respect that players move their squads around on maps with grids that contain various terrain features. I've seen that Krosmaster tournaments (not sure what level it starts at) have maps that are printed on some sort of thin laminated card stock. The backside of the map is a poster for the game.
It'd be cool to see FFG Organized play add something like this to the tournament kits. Instead of everyone having to drag around their terrain tiles at a tournament and set it up every round, they'd play at the mat already laid out at the table. The mats could have different looking art on them than the stock tile sets provide as well as giving FFG a way to add different features to maps that aren't available in the core set.
This would probably bump up the tournament kit prices but is a nice piece of swag that players are able to take home from the tournament with them.