Running a theme finder site is a massive battle against the odds. Yet, I can't help but feel somebody might pull it off and achieve "go to" status someday. Another new one is http://www.themeshaker.com. It's somewhat like what I tried with ThemeSorter but with a better UI. What's cool about Alex's attempt are the reviews.

As far as reviews go, I agree that they should be community-driven. It's probably not possible to provide thorough reviews of hundreds of themes without massive manpower. And who better to provide the reviews than actual users. But the big question is how in the world do you get the customers to go and write a review on a site they don't even know exists?

Another problem is the number of themes. There might be 20 or more new themes coming out every single day. There must be 10,000 or more commercial themes alone. A theme finder site should have pretty much everything to be useful (imagine if Google searched 10% of the Internet). Again, you'd need massive manpower. Solution? Make it community-driven again, like ManageWP.org's news site, for example. Create some type of incentive for people to add new themes. Give them a cut of the revenue.

The other problem is the stigma of affiliate links. People naturally distrust sources when bias is suspected. There are a lot of junk affiliate sites. There are some that have real, useful content but they get lumped in the the lazy scapers. So what to do? Maybe offer non-affiliate buttons for buying to ease some tension. Or, maybe don't use affiliate links at all (managing 100+ affiliate accounts is bordering on insanity anyway). Try and get theme shops to buy ad space instead.

Just some thoughts from somebody who's been wanting to see an ideal solution for a long time.