Ironically the starting position that I've found to be the most balanced for black and white is just swapping the starting square of the bishops and knights.

It turns normally-sound opening moves like 1.d4 and 1.e4 into liabilities and emphasizes the knights as blocking material to occupy squares like d2 and e2 , but the tradeoff is that a early-developed bishop can get a lot more active centrally via an open wing.

Such a layout makes for a very cautious opening phase where neither side really feels comfortable giving up much material. Really a fascinating setup.