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Durin's Bane was not the Ring. It was the Balrog.
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Of course, but the Balrog was not the "new power" that would have to come before the dwarves could return to Moria, since it had been there for a very long time already.
All the things that have been mentioned so far would explain this easily if Balin had been living peacefully in the Lonely Mountain. But this isn't the case, and none of these reasons seem quite sufficient to make someone want to return to a place that they had been forced out of long before, and that the dwarves had previously
refused to enter, something that, in fact, only an insane (or ring-influenced) dwarf had done. If it's that easy to go back, how do you explain their long exile, and Dain's quote at the top of the page?
Edit: It occurs to me that I could be clearer. The things I can think of that would have kept the Dwarves out of Moria are the 1) the tainting of the space and 2) the residence of the Balrog.
I don't see any reason why anybody would think that either of these things had changed. Gimli at least knew that a new power had indeed arisen and that things might change, but Balin did not.
--Belin Ibaimendi
[ July 20, 2002: Message edited by: Belin ]
[ July 20, 2002: Message edited by: Belin ]