Off topic on my first paragraph, I admit.
JimmyHat - a friend and I changed everything in Revised to d20 for a bunch of games quite some years ago… it actually worked quite well, because everything could be adjusted by increments of 5%. It was fun, and felt more realistic. I wouldn’t recommend it for a game with as many variables as Global, though.
I’ll resubmit this idea - the best place for Italian economy is in Russia. Take small Russian blocker armies, move large German forces in to reinforce. In this way, Italy does the heavy lifting and losing of casualties while building a nice economic base; Germany gets to keep precious infantry alive, and has immediate places to land aircraft to make newly taken Italian holdings not able to be counterattacked.