Let me know when your site is up, and I'll check it out.  I'm in no hurry, because I've got so little time right now to work on my game.

One of the other things that I like about "paces" is that it is conveys an appropriate amount of precision (or lack thereof).  That's what drove me to it in the first place.  I wanted to make it plain that the players could think in terms of 3 feet or 1 meter or 5 feet or whatever, and that was precise enough for the system to work.  Because every now and then I get a player who does have a good sense of distance visualization.  I do.  If you keep saying "20 feet" or "30 feet" or whatever, that conveys to them something more precise, even if you constantly quality it with "about 20 feet" or the like.  "Paces" is simultaneously more naturalistic as you said, but it is also a more correct level of abstraction for what is happening with communication at the table.

One of my players who sometimes DMs very much preferred using a grid and minis or pogs for indoors or towns and a hex grid for long distance outdoors.

You could allways use D&D HeroScape sets. They put out quite a bit of minis for it.

Squares are easier to draw in Excel.

I don't use either. Theatre of the Mind.