In reply to Flux Research (@fluxresearch).

I was giving this some more thought, especially after Donna's comment. Do you think it would be beneficial if all themes that are activated on a site were just child themes? That is, every theme designed ships with the appropriate child theme requirements and that's what users end up activating and using, leaving the theme it's based on in tact, with no edits.

The problem I see with this method is confusion among customers thinking they have two themes and are unsure of which one they are using/editing.