Thanks, a great read. I hopped on the WP bandwagon some five years back.

I find the whole "theme" and "template" and "customization" environment to be a real digital wild west. Making educated decisions is tough.

One interesting world would be one where "Theme" would be abolished from the WP dictionary/practice and instead there'd be two separate instances: "Skins" and "Templates". Templates would offer output per conditions, Skins styling. No optional functionality allowed in Skins or Templates. That would be Plugin's territory.