@donnacha | WordSkill - I agree that Brian gives incredible support. (You also see amazing support on the Thesis forums as well as with Justin Tadlock's work.) Now to be fair to iThemes, the Essence theme was released almost two years ago. It was one of their first (if not the first) theme released. And they have grown tons as a company over the past 2 years. Their newer themes are way better (options / coding / etc) than the Essence theme. And there is no one more committed than Cory Miller to providing new users of WordPress training that many of us take for granted today. Nobody at WooThemes, StudioPress, Thesis, Modthemes, PremiumThemes, or any other theme developer provides more on-going support and training seminars geared to new WordPress users than Cory and his crew. Cory and his crew provide live seminars, tons of video tutorials (that for people who have developer license, we get unbranded video tutorials... a HUGE bonus), and have even started promoting their new WordPress Bootcamp.

Each of the theme developers on the market has their own user and market base they are trying to reach. Just because one of them doesn't fit your particular needs, doesn't mean they don't fit the needs of the users that team was focused on going after.

(Side note: I own develop licenses for pretty much every theme developer. So my illustrations and experiences I use and speak from are my own. That doesn't mean other peoples experiences can't be different than mine.)