I think that the sea lanes concept is worth play testing. At first glance it looks like a work around the difficulties of coding Dave Cohen's 'Open Seas' concept. It does capture some of the ability to share the oceans, while placing a tactical command of the central/pivot position. I actually like that dynamic as I think about it more.
Tom, I hate to beat on you because your maps are cool, but you'r objections to this are simply not rooted in any basis of experience. You've never played this map as we are playing it there. You experience is based on your variant with coalition wins decided by voting and specifically in 8-10 years games. We are not playing that kind of game on the map at VDip, and that makes it something completely different than you are familar with. Your version 6.2 addressed some of these things , and some of them very well, but it also made a number of very arbitrary changes, many of them for the worse (Saudi Arabia, Cape Verde Islands, Winnepeg) and ignored some others (Galapagos, Atlantic Ocean spaces, and countless unnecessary border redraws). The reason that there is such an admant call for alternatives to the oceans is that your version was not designed to be played with a SC total victory condition, and the flaws in the map were never really discovered because the games always ended before they manifested themselves.
I don't hate the transform idea, but it irks me just because I think that it seems like a crutch removing all the skill that it takes to amass a balanced military force and adapt to an evolving game. Now the notion that Illinois can "simply" get to New Orleans is laughable. I don't think Illinois is at a disadvantage, but New Orleans is no easy take for him. Of course if Illinois reaches New Orleans or Miami, he's got a pretty good empire and can afford to start planning a navy with his other assets. The larger point in this is that the variant doesn't really need to transform option because it's a build anywhere map already. And the game of Diplomacy already has a transform feature built into it. You just arrange for an ally (or an enemy) to disband your useless units and rebuilt them in the position and as the type you wish. I think that adding a 901 Known World transform feature to this map isn't necessary.