Well I have desgiend a 3D version of a 2D Terrain Maker.. It probably wont be as polished as urs Phalex - but feel free to use it in anyway u like.
Its based around your idea, but slightly different technique.
There is ONE image template.. Currently its hard coded to accept:
a file called: map.png
Dimensions: 256x256
Tile Size: 32x32
But I can easily make it either "settings.ini" based.. Or you can just edit the source which is available.
It then precalculates the UV Map for each tile. It then loads a map.txt where it gets a tile count, tile width, tile depth and data. The data is basically the same as yours.. A tile ID.
Each tile is numbered consecutively in rows from 0-63. There are also special tile ID's such as:
-1 : Not present (ie invisible/not drawn)
-2 : End of Row
-3 : End of File
I THINK my one should be able to have dynamic rows (ie if only the first tile is used in a row then you only need to apply that tile, no need to pad out with -1's.. I haven't test that though.
Anywho.. Screeny attached. Go to my website and select 2D Terrain Maker from the Project Menu.
OR (for those too lazy) here is a direct link to that project:
http://www.thingy-ma-jig.co.uk/show_project.php?pid=12
SCREENY:
[EDIT]
Just remembered.. It wouldn't be too hard to implement a fake heightmap to this. I dunno how it'd look..
Basically, you'd modify the angle of the Normal (per vertice) as if it was at an angle on a real terrain, but you leave it flat. This would mean when you rotate the camera with a light it would shade the terrain differently based on the Normal at that vertice. If that makes sense...