RE: basic design parameters
Sort of. If you look around, the gliders that do a specific task will end up looking fairly similar. Most 60" slope racers will have roughly the same span, chord, tail boom length, tail volume, and weight.
My suggestion is to decide what you want your plane to do first. A good place to start, and a great flyer, is the 60" One Design Racer on the Torrey Pines Gulls website. All the specifications such as airfiol, area, span, chord, materiels, and weight are listed there. This plane was sold as the "Fun One", co designed by Charlie Richrdson and Paul Naton. Something in this size range will fly in light slope lift, but with ballast will fly pretty fast. I'm assuming you want a sloper due to your location; I fly at Pudding Creek when I'm in your area.