Okay, I've got a major improvement on this. Rather than forcing the user to handle iteration through the loop and to compile the return list -- making this implementation of highly dubious value over a normal 'for' loop -- we define an abstract superclass from which to inherit rather an interface to implement:

   public abstract static class MapBlock {
    public Object[] run(Object[] list) {
        Object[] out = new Object[list.length];
        // begin loop through list
        for (int i = 0; i < list.length; i++) {
          // call processElement on ourself and collect element return
+ed
          Object new_obj = this.processElement(list[i]);
          out[i] = new_obj;
        }
        return out;
    }
    public abstract Object processElement(Object obj);
    // This might alternatively return an Object array for greater fle
+xibility.
    // 'run' would require slight alterations to deal with an array co
+ming back.
    // Thanks for the idea to [jdporter]

    }
[download]

The original definition of map remains the same. Then below, we can simplify the anonymous class to the point where this is really starting to look like map!

    Object[] new_list = 
        map(new MapBlock() { 
            public Object processElement(Object obj) {
              String str = (String)obj;
              return str.toUpperCase();
            }
        }, objects); // end of MapBlock, second param objects
[download]

It's times like these I say booyah! ; )