Has Theming Gone Downhill?
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I don't know how long its been since I have seen a skin thats caused as stir in the world of themes. Maybe I'm the only one feeling this, maybe not. With Vista nearing completion it seems theres been a drought in fresh original themes, hell even Mac replicas 
I noticed the decline before the release of WB5, it was hoped that with this release, new themes would surface, and for a time many did surface taking advantage of the new features. As the months went by, instead of new themes, all that seemed to be coming was updated versions of older classics. This was a nice treat as for many of us, those updates helped breath new life into them. As the more updates came, the worse it got. The popular authors known for their fantastic work didn't seem to be producing anything new, simply updating their older creations. To this date many of these authors still haven't released anything new, myself included. Now I don't want to come off as attacking these authors for not releasing anything. For all we know they could be having some problems in their everyday life and can't make time for themes, at least thats my excuse. Since then, new authors have spawned and others have pumped out more themes. Now I don't want to seem like I'm bashing these guys so I won't name names, but I feel these themes aren't original creations instead modified from a prior release. Then there are others that a simply a mystery why anyone would create that, but you gotta start somewhere and most of these new authors have all shown improvement with each release.
I guess where I'm going with this is I feel that the themes that have made the biggest impact in the community are gone, and I don't see them coming back. I waited a few months before writing this because I wanted to make sure the trend kept up. Now some may say everyones holding back until Vista, if thats true does that mean until its release we won't see anything standing above the crowd? I guess only time will tell.
I hope my point was made clear, I didn't mean to offend anyone if I did, I was simply stating the trend with themes over the past year.
I noticed the decline before the release of WB5, it was hoped that with this release, new themes would surface, and for a time many did surface taking advantage of the new features. As the months went by, instead of new themes, all that seemed to be coming was updated versions of older classics. This was a nice treat as for many of us, those updates helped breath new life into them. As the more updates came, the worse it got. The popular authors known for their fantastic work didn't seem to be producing anything new, simply updating their older creations. To this date many of these authors still haven't released anything new, myself included. Now I don't want to come off as attacking these authors for not releasing anything. For all we know they could be having some problems in their everyday life and can't make time for themes, at least thats my excuse. Since then, new authors have spawned and others have pumped out more themes. Now I don't want to seem like I'm bashing these guys so I won't name names, but I feel these themes aren't original creations instead modified from a prior release. Then there are others that a simply a mystery why anyone would create that, but you gotta start somewhere and most of these new authors have all shown improvement with each release.I guess where I'm going with this is I feel that the themes that have made the biggest impact in the community are gone, and I don't see them coming back. I waited a few months before writing this because I wanted to make sure the trend kept up. Now some may say everyones holding back until Vista, if thats true does that mean until its release we won't see anything standing above the crowd? I guess only time will tell.
I hope my point was made clear, I didn't mean to offend anyone if I did, I was simply stating the trend with themes over the past year.