Maybe it’s a cut-away view to show how deep the volcanoe’s crater is.
I’d be surprised if you’d be able to see the top. It’s a really, really big mountain - bigger than Spain or the United Kingdom in total area. This picture gives you an idea: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002300/a002326/mola_nature_3x6x0.2s.0003_tc.jpg
So, the answer to the OP’s question is, Mars may well be pretty flat, but it’s nips have great personality?
The page says that the "the horizontal scale has been greatly reduced for clarity. ". It might not look so odd in real proportions. The isa big crater at the top.
One of my astronomy books described the cross section of Olympus Mons as being roughly equivalent to the flight path between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It’s a really, really big pile of rock, so big that standing next to it probably wouldn’t produce a meaningful perception of its size.
Ditto the Grand-Canyon-dwarfing Valles Marineris, which is so incredibly huge that there are places where, standing on one rim, the other rim is far enough away that it disappears below the horizon.
Mars is not only not flat, it’s so rugged that it makes the Himalayas look like a miniature golf course.
The Mars rover Spirit landed 3 km from a range of low hills that were named the Columbia Hills. It drove all the way to and over the hills in the course of its travels.
Moss don’t grow on them! 
(If Cas, Pol, Gramma Hazel, and Buster recorded a record à la the Cowsills, and Doctor Hook then recorded his own version, could you say he got his wish?)
1.) Yes. That’s why Martian Columbus had such a hard time financing his planned voyage to Syrtis Major. And then his carts fell off the edge anyway.
2.) Yes. This is the “World” Thomas Friedman was referring to.