I disagree 100% Keith.

1. There is no guarantee paid themes will be updated. More 'likely' but no 'guarantee'.

2. Many of the good free themes are from designers with good paid themes. It is in their best interest to keep their free themes up to date as the free themes are i) often the core/framework/base of a paid theme (whereby you pay for extra addons), and/or ii) the free themes are their best source of advertising for their paid themes = incentive to keep up to date.

The ideology that free themes are a poorer cousin of paid themes is an out of date stereotype with out a lot of evidence in today's market. The fact is, there a good themes free and paid and neither have a guarantee of being updated.

Keith, checkout the free Generatorpress theme as an example.

Users are better off to look for good, reliable and experienced theme developers... rather than the theme itself.

Thanks, Pete