Well interestingly, i like your idea of the maplist, it doesn't change that much except for adding in the bulk maps at some points, but it fits fairly well...
however i see little wrong with the original game, i find that most of it plays at a pretty good pace, the game isn't annoyingly long and not to short either. there are only very few things i am bothered about regarding the maplist and order
on the other side RTNP for me was a major dissapointment in that, it failed to deliver a proper amount of maps (the ones i anticipated from the beta) and its storyline is barely involving at all.
so i'll be tearing apart rtnp into the version its supposed to be according to me
MY RTNP VERSION:
1. Bodega Bay (okay it doesn't exist, but i would have loved a level where you are allowed into exploring atleast a BIT of the bodega bay accompanied with starone.umx)
2. Edge of Napali (day)
3. Neve's Crossing (take a boat at the end rather then jumping a well)(dusk)
4. Glathriel village Pt1. (late dusk)
5. Glathriel village Pt2.(night)
6. Crashsite(night)
7. Crashsite1(night)
8. Crashsite2 (marine battle here)(rainy night, if legend has good coders )
9. Spirevalley(dawn)
10. Eldora Well, fits in REALLY well with that mysterious temple entry in u97(later dawn)
11. Spirevalley Pt2. (lake slightly drained maybe? reveals soledad entry at dried sandbank)(day)
12. Soledad(day)
13. Spirevalley Pt3. (exiting soledad reveals some terran ship landings and marine beaming in around the area... chaos ensues between marines and titans and you )(dusk)
14. Morose (skaarj again after defeating marines, you 2 - 0 marines )(late dusk)
15. Nagomi Pass (not desert mind you)(night)
16. Aztec (entering via rtnp area, not beta, map itself is u97 though with valley and such)(dawn)
17. Nagomi Pass(day)
18. Foundry(day)
19. Bounds of Foundry (beta version, the entry valley is nice and its bigger too)(dusk)
20. Glacena (the lift in BoF goes UP not DOWN, the player encounters titans, skaarj and frozen marine corpses, a foresight of what to come)(night)
21. Abyss (the player encounters a marine fortress and fights marines again)(night)
22. Mountain Fortress (yes even more marines here, though they seem to clash with the krall who are infiltrating the place via another teleporter on the right side of the fortress... once krall and marine are dead the WARLORD spawns at the teleporter (where he usually spawns, but then a teleporter instead of an abyss mind you!))(dawn)
INTERMISSION: the rtnp endgame, but instead of blowing the bodega bay up the bodega bay pwns the shuttle and uses a tractor beam.
23. Return to Bodega Bay (the player kicks some ass inside the bodega bay and kills the crew, blows up the vessel and leaves for space kthxbye!)
all creatures that rtnp had will be in here aswell, including more involvement of the marines which rtnp really needed.
nexus and nexusend are missing.. whys that
fun levels, but somewhat missing in the current unreal standards, its heavily unfinished but next to that the lack of z-axis give this map a very strong u95 feeling.
PS: intermissions are gay, so everything is done via GOOD OL FASHIONED TRANSLATORMESSAGES that rtnp especially lacked in that regard!