this is great, and i love the land colour (the sea colour is a bit dark fr my tastes, but there's no pleasing everyone ).

A question on the projection though (which you mention on post #3) is which is accurate - the 2d paper maps or the globe? If you're actually using the paper maps as the normal maps you're going to end up with a lot of warping in the poles (distances stretched). Or is the 2d map accurate and already 'projected' so to speak. so that once its applied to the globe with the grid, it maintains roughly he same shape?