Good to see ithemes getting back into the game, they haven't been making much of an impression over the last year or so, as demonstrated by their poor showing in the poll you ran a few weeks ago. Itheme's failure to keep up with the other premium themers was surprising after the promise shown by excellent early theme set Essence, which I purchased and was very happy with.

I think a more appropriate question when it comes to iThemes would be "Can A Theme Developer PRICE Himself Out Of Business?" - their developer package at $500 seems ridiculous when you consider the more interesting and more varied suites of themes that StudioPress and WooThemes offer at far lower prices. Perhaps ithemes have a huge installed base of customers who simply don't know about other providers, but I've never met a Web Designer whose reaction to their price wasn't "WTF!". I suspect they could have made a lot more money overall if they had the sense to pitch at a more competitive price, certainly not more that the $200 that Brian charges.

Then again, perhaps this Builder theme is their attempt to start competing, perhaps it will provide enough flexibility at a sane price to compete head-on with StudioPress but, right now, the beta is only available to $500 subscribers, rendering it largely irrelevant.