In reply to Ryan Sullivan.

My question, why are there so few customization options within Wordpress itself? And why are other themes so limited?

If child themes were better supported by Wordpress and if I were an expert at coding, then a customizable theme would be completely unnecessary. Until then, it's Weaver Xtreme for my website(s).

Many of the 600 options are rather minor. Colors for every last detail, shadowing, rounding corners, fonts, etc. But when combined, all of these small adjustments make a big difference in creating a unique website.

Other options are functionally critical such as the ability to choose the number and location of menus, number and layout of sidebars, responsive layout options, and a method of entering custom CSS that won't be over-written when the theme is updated. I'm surprised how many themes lack these basic features.

Additionally, not all of the 600 options are for website design. Weaver Xtreme provides some important management features such as downloading and uploading theme option backups.