Okay, these are some of the ideas I've come up with in order to meet the following shortcomings of the existing game:
1) Unpromoted pieces in general (though not always) should have some backward movement, but different and preferably weaker than their forward movement.
2) Pieces need to be more offensive than defensive.
3) The setup needs to also be geared more for offense than defense.
4) There should not be too many pieces regardless of board size, or else they defend too many squares and the board gets really cluttered and difficult to effectively move on, particularly in certain sections where action is taking place. It is especially wise to avoid moves that cover too many adjacent squares so there are "holes" in a piece's coverage.
5) Promoted pieces should have stronger abilities, including improved backward movement, but should still not be too powerful; there still need to be gaps in their coverage. The only exception would be the lance or similar piece, whatever we decide on, and this is compensated for by its inability to jump at all.
6) Though I believe alternately promoting and demoting adds an interesting dimension for both sides when their moves are very different (as in Micro Shogi where a gold general promotes to a rook), since pieces have similar style moves in most cases on both sides, it might be best to at least try permanent promotion and the ability to drop only the weaker face up.
7) I therefore wish to use the following pieces with brief descriptions of their moves. All are based on pre-existing pieces following strict interpretive rules for changing them to single-dimensional moves, which you already know.
Pawn/Go Between - You already know this one
King - You know this one too
Tile General/Copper General: T-jumps to second square forward or steps one square back/C-steps one square forward or back, or jumps to second square forward
Heavenly Horse/Cavalryman: HH-jumps to third square forward or back/Cm-steps one square forward or back or jumps to third square forward or back
Goose/Phoenix: This one you know
Howling Dog/Silver Cannon: I'm still not sure about how I want to do this one. I was talking about using the reverse chariot, but I also might just want to use the howling dog instead, which moves like a lance, but also has the option to take a single step backwards
Flying Swallow/Bishop: FS-like a bishop foward, or one step backward/B-you already know
That's it for now. I may want to still use the reverse chariot instead of the howling dog, but otherwise, I think I want to try this piece combination. I'm almost tempted to end our current game and give this a chance, but I still need to work out the setup.