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The BLO pops the grain and adds a bit of color to the maple. Stand the tambour on end so that the slats don't stick together when the finish cures.

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The narrow, flat, board in front of the tambour is a piece of maple with no oil on it.

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A better view of what BLO does for maple

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The longer the BLO dried, the worse it looked. Apparently I did one of two (or maybe both) things wrong:
1. I sanded to a finer grit than I should have (Did this to 180).
2. I did not soak the surface long enough before I wiped the first coat off.

So, I applied another coat and kept the surface wet for at least 45 minutes before wiping the excess off.
I suspect #2 is the issue.....I did not have the same issue with the top surface of the bottom slab.

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This is the middle of the bottom (a very close shot). The visibility of the joints between the boards is even less aparent.

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Also note the chatoyance (the way the boards reflect light). I was very careful to keep grain orientation in the same way. It is very obvious there are 3 boards glued together to make this end. All pieces were from the same board. All were kept in sequence and the same face exposed.
This may be "The Maple Curse".

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The joints between the boards were not very obvious before I applied the BLO.
The joints are now quite obvious....at least to me.
Another coat of BLO and letting it cure for several more days seems to have fixed the issue.