To be truthful, after a couple rounds of unbalanced play on Redscape, I kind of crave that type of map. I'd love to help come up with something that stayed fairly close to the idea of Lord of the Rings, the Wheel of Time, or the Stormlight Archive.

I would love a Middle Earth Map.

To clarify things the imbalance was not of the sort that was designed into the scenario. The previous Middle Earth map I saw was intended to be 6-7 theoretically equivalent powers. The issues we simply such that certain nations had clear advancement choices while others were always going to be stuck as victims.

I think that variant can have starting positions with nations holding more or less centers than others and still be balanced. The base game does this with Russia. Its a matter of the rest of the map, and or the variant rules offering up other mitigating factor to provide balance.

For example in a Middle Earth variant, you could rather reasonably start off Mordor with more units yet scatter them across the land so that they have to work hard to concentrate their powerbase. This type of colony style SC assignment (such as seen in the Imperial II map) offer nations very intriguing diplomatic options with nations on the other side of the map from them.

Thanks for clarifying Randy. Colony-style is something I was heavily leaning towards, no matter what map I end up shooting for. All 3 that I mentioned above have some awesome possibilities to them, some of which would work here, and some of which would only work via PBEM with a GM to moderate. They also mostly lend themselves to some sort of imbalance, but not one that couldn't be worked around.

It would be great if we had sort of a panel to work on Middle Earth. I don't have any programming skill, but I am a big Tolkien fan. I would like to put input about it.

Tolkien fan here too.
The map is still on LabDip isn't it?

Just remember colonial powers can often be unable to defend themselves because they are too far flung

A few things mentioned...
Imbalance is USUALLY something to be avoided! Drano mentions a game where the imbalance is understood from the start and those who are disadvantaged do have other advantages to help make up for them. It can be fun but there must be ways to counter these imbalances and the Middle earth game Ruff mentions does nothing to make up for them, it's simply a bad game!

There ARE several Middle earth games in the variant bank, I have not played any but few look very good (aside from the concept that is). King Cyrus suggests it would be great to have a panel design such a game and he may be right but in my experiences designing games, it's far easier to simply design a game on your own, post the design and ask for comments/suggestions. It's really not too difficult and you need zero programming skill. If you can get a basic paint shop program and learn the most basic of skills on that program, you simply draw it out. You can find anothers map to start as your base and edit it as you like, once you get the basic game down, post your idea and watch the comments flow like crazy! Be careful to listen to all ideas but remember it's your idea and if you thought it out well, then others may not "get it" as well as yourself, take what others say, consider it and then use their ideas, alter their ideas or trash them altogether, you simply can not take EVERY idea as gospel! But do go ahead and start the process, I look forward to commenting when complete or near complete.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

To be open, I'm not sure I'm entirely thinking of a "normal" Dip variant (that is, one with fleets and armies only). I have an idea for a unique unit (or two)/rule that would not drastically change the game, but would certainly make things more interesting, at least from my perspective.

Rest assured though that comments will be greatly appreciated, and I look forward to collaborating with some opposite personalities to see how each side views my ideas.

The Haven game uses such special rules and each unit has it's own special function. To be honest, such special rules for each power is a scary thing thing to work out. a tiny imbalance can work out to a horrendous result and it's real hard to see this until the game unfolds.
If, however, you were to simply add special units that were available to all, that makes it far easier to figure out! But does it make sense to allow Hobbits to use say Orc units?
Maybe add a wizard unit since they worked for both good and bad and had no "nation" of their own. Or another idea to maybe consider...
in my "Explore!" variant I have it so players can improve units. in that game if a player spends 4 consecutive turns improving a units offense (or defense...what-have-you) then it has an added level of offense/defense whatever he improved, you could consider something similar? A "Mystic" unit could be a wizard who studies to improve his craft? Or any basic army unit spending time to create such a mystic warrior might fit in line with the theme you intend? This way you can somewhat easily add multiple features available to all players so any imbalance is at least available to all and it can work nice with whatever theme you dream up.