Without wanting to promote a radical approach, I know what got us into this dilemma. While contributing and or following the theme world for 16 years and knowing that it would affect the way I do business I would start thinking about changing the playing field by simply disallowing all "Lite" themes, upsells, recommendation Pop Ups and following a zero backlink / upsell policy, no footer credit lines, etc. ... Everybody will only have the "Author, Author URI, Theme URI:" in the style.css as their billboard for their commercial activity.

Using a GIT style approach to the theme directory would be a big improvement and encourage others to enforce these policies and help in the further development of certain themes.

If theme authors do not want to participate, the themes would be still be in a GIT and others can contribute and make sure that "to big to fail" themes stay updated (the GPL does allow this, correct?).

Extending the style.css meta to include contributors shouldn't be a problem.

With having measures in place to calculate the popularity of a theme wptavern could put the spotlight up and comers, the most popular ones, the most innovative ones, etc. Interview the authors and contributors, give them publicity this way. Top it off with an award ceremony at the WordCamps, like "most popular theme in Asia, Europe, Gobal, etc ... , best designed theme, etc .... maybe even a cash price or free travel and accommodation to a WordCamp.

Just an idea, what do you think?