Charles, you have another rather plausible sounding theory there, but I think Simcha Jacobovici has a good theory too, and maybe a few others do.

I recommend checking out Simcha at http://www.simchajtv.com/

Some of the more relevant articles there should be these:

Mount Sinai Found?
Last of the Minoans
Destruction Layer Confirms Biblical Conquest

I saw his theory on tv a few years ago, so that's where I know most of it. The only one of the articles above that I've read is the last one. I think the one about the Minoans is likely to have his evidence that the Minoans were contemporaries of Moses and that they had a depiction of the Red Sea or Reed Sea catastrophe that destroyed the Egyptian army pursuing the Israelites.

Simcha thinks that the plagues that preceded the Exodus were caused by the eruption of Santorini on the island of Thera. His tv show also showed that a lake in Africa turned red some years ago and gave off a gas that killed people near it. He figured that if first-born Egyptian children slept in the lowest beds at night, they would have been selectively killed by a similar gas from the Nile.

In the last article above he says he thinks the Exodus occurred around 1500 BC and explains why.

Otherwise, much of your theory seems potentially compatible with his.