Sorry, I really think that the phrase “Premium theme” devalues every other theme

Yeah, sorry about that. I try to use the word “commercial” as much as possible. Old habits.

As Andy pointed out, most functionality that commercial themes deliver is available for free from plugins and free (as in beer) themes.

Certainly. But commercial themes don’t just sell well because they’re offering functionality you can’t get anywhere else. It’s the fact that it’s all in one … convenient, centrally maintained and supported. Don’t underestimate the value in that. It’s huge.

Also design. I tend to downplay it. It frustrates me that users are so impressed with shiny things, while ignoring the hard work that really matters. But still, I don’t think you can legitimately claim that the free market offers the level of design quality and variety that the commercial theme market does. In fact, it could be reasonably argued that sexy design is what ignited the commercial theme market in the first place.

I do think that Commercial theme developers are good, but I think that they are no more important than any other theme developer.

I’ll give you that. There are about as many “good” free themes as there are “good” commercial themes (not very many). And there are only about 5 truly “great” themes, period (some free, some commercial).

(I obviously would judge a theme’s greatness on a different scale than others might. I’m not one of those “eye of the beholder” types. To me, there is an objectively right, and objectively wrong way of building a WordPress theme, or any website, for that matter).

A lot of the features touted on sales pages are just duplicating plugin functionality.

True enough. But I would contend that there are some things that plugins can’t do at all, and other things that they can’t do very well. Especially in terms of what gets served up to the browser. That is, by nature, a theme’s job.

Also, the reason patches are needed is to actually improve the software. How does posting 140 character messages improve WordPress?

I also think the People want to pay for stuff argument is a load of crock. People think they are getting more value (which they are not) or something that is unique (which based on the sales figures you give is also false). I’m not saying people are being bamboozled or mislead, but I do think that they aren’t always making the most informed decision.

Like Andy, I also download Thematic via SVN. The fact that the theme repository to the best of my knowledge doesn’t count SVN checkouts also makes it hard to measure their true impact. Oh, and if number of downloads is all that counts, Kubrick was downloaded how many tens of millions of times?

I do think that Commercial theme developers are good, but I think that they are no more important than any other theme developer.