In reply to Ted Clayton.

That the TRT is 3 years (and counting) on their mandate ‘says things’, in and of itself.

It's actually been five years next month.

That the TRT was clearly vested with policy-powers from the beginning, as well as performing the routine service of “Review”, is additional ‘head-scratching’ info.

The "policy powers" relate specifically to content hosted on and distributed by wordpress.org, and do not extend in any way to any developer who chooses not to release/host a Theme on wordpress.org.

A cocked eyebrow reaction to TRT appears warranted.

The Theme Review Team has always been entirely open, and has never shied away from input, feedback, or criticism. Cocked eyebrows are more than welcome.

Three years to sit on, mull a policy-decision … that doesn’t speak to a refined Executive-expertise.

Core developers take four years to decide whether a favicon setting should be included in core, or left to Plugins. Somehow, I don't think that the TRT taking a measured, planned approach to a somewhat major Theme development component is unusual or unwarranted.

Yeah, there’s some problems with themes … but that TRT is actually part of the/any solution, is not obvious/convincing.

I'll stand behind the five-year-long work of the Theme Review Team, as well as the the results of that work. I'll put the quality of wordpress.org-hosted Themes up against any Themes, anywhere.

Further, I'll stand behind the volunteer contributions of a couple hundred people, who freely give of their time to review Themes - perhaps a million man-hours over the past five years.

The Theme Review Team has led the charge to improve overall Theme quality, to drive Themes to implement core features rather than roll their own, to drive Themes to using core APIs properly, so that Themes work well both with core and with Plugins, as well as with Child Themes.

Most importantly, the Theme Review Team has led the way in ensuring that Themes are secure, and implement options properly, so that they do not introduce security vulnerabilities.

The work of the Theme Review Team extends beyond the Theme directory. Ask commercial Plugin developers, such as GravityForms, WooCommerce, and Easy Digital Downloads, if their businesses are impacted by better quality Themes, driven by the efforts of the Theme Review Team. And Envato would not have made nearly the effort to institute their own code quality requirements for ThemeForest, if not for the work of the Theme Review Team. Even Automattic has been influenced by our work, in their own requirements for Themes available on wordpress.com.

(And that effort is a two-way street, even if much of it is behind the scenes.)

That's just the tip of the iceberg. If you haven't seen the Theme Review Team as being part of the solution, then quite frankly you haven't been paying attention.