That sounds good!
“While the crust bakes and cools, make the cranberry curd: Put cranberries, sugar and orange juice and peel in a saucepan over medium heat. Simmer until cranberries have popped and softened, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a food mill or medium mesh sieve and press cooking liquid and solids into a bowl.”
So I made it. Here’s basically the recipe: 20oz cranberries, 1 and 2/3 cup sugar, about 10oz chopped walnuts, 1 T cornstarch, dot with butter, bake at 375 for 1 hour. At that point it wasn’t done, so I turned it up to 400 for another 1/2 hour until it started bubbling, and my pretty lattice crust got unattractively dark.
It was … OK. Pretty good, actually, with vanilla ice cream. But I now know why people aren’t baking cranberry pies every day. They’re so tart, even with the necessarily huge amounts of sugar. There’s a reason you have a little dab of cranberry sauce with your turkey, not a big bowl full of it for dessert. The flavor is just too astringent to want very much of.
My technique was not right, either. I might try again. Neither chopping or pre-cooking the cranberries, it never really came together as a mass. The berries burst, but did not melt into a mush like I hoped they would – they remained berry-like, retaining their individual integrity. I think it would have been better if I’d used a food processor to make a chunky relish-like texture before baking. Or, probably easier, pre-cook them with sugar until they become liquidy.
Still, the resulting flavor is going to be total cranberry assault on a pie plate, and as I said, I get now why this is not America’s Favorite Pie.
Thanks for the update, very informative.
I might enjoy your pie. I am extremely fond of cranberry. My apple-cranberry pie has discrete chunks of fruit that cascade out of the crust if you handle a slice roughly. But i wouldn’t eat the mush-based pie you wanted. 
I think pre-cooking is a good idea if your crust over-browned before the filling was done. But another method is to drape some aluminum foil over the crust, either the whole top crust or the edges, depending on what issues you are seeing, towards the end of the bake.
If you want to tone down the flavor of the pie, and don’t care for apple, you might try mixing in some pear. It’s a mild flavor that’s a nice counterpoint for cranberry.