Maybe OT but:

In the context of software and web publishing a theme/skin is usually a term describing a graphical appearance.

The parent/child theme distinction is useful to separate child themes from normal themes.

When it comes to the theme framework term I think its useful to make the distinction from themes with a graphical appearance, addressing that the theme is made to bring a framework of functionality to make graphic skins/child themes on top of.

However theres a framework buzz and too many call their themes frameworks, even though they really dont bring much functionality for child theming.

To me the term theme framework has a clear semantic meaning, and is useful to make a distinction from regular themes with graphic appearance and no extra functionality for child theming.

A interesting question for Andy is:

When you decided on using the term theme framework, does that imply that the theme will be developed actively as a framework along the lines of true theme frameworks like Hybrid, Thematic, Carrington etc. ?