Seeing as the talk was mine lets see what I maybe can do to clear up some of the confusion. I’d have loved to chat with you there but seems we didn’t get a chance to discuss the talk after. That’s a shame, lets see what we can do to talk it through now.

To pan out of the point a bit, you can see it as using a type with the word theme. For example, it could have been a WooCommerce Theme Do and Don’ts or Theme Do and Don’ts. That’s the loosest definition though. If you take it a bit further thinking about types, that is exactly what a BuddyPress theme is.

BuddyPress themes do exist and they should exist. Before my current role I actually made a living making BuddyPress themes. This was after theme compatibility came in. Many still do.

As I went through in my talk, of course the amazing theme compatibility just works - because it’s awesome. The thing with it is, it's trying to hit the widest range of themes. It is trying to fit in all, sometimes you need it customised a bit depending on your theme. This is where CSS comes in.

However, that’s just the tip of a whole lot of a BuddyPress iceberg when it comes to themeing. You can add into your theme just CSS, templates.. it’s up to you. You choose how much of the BuddyPress’ness you roll into your theme. Just like bbPress. Maybe it 'just works' and maybe you want to go beyond - that's what this talk focused on.

With BuddyPress you also have the addition of themes for communities needing a bit more than a typical WordPress theme. WordPress themes are great but they don’t fit exactly for types. Often they are a more generalised theme - which is fine until you hit a niche. BuddyPress often sits in a niche. They need specifics, there are use cases.. there are personas.. the tip of that iceberg keeps growing :) This is also part of what I went through in the talk.

As a side point I’d love to see bbPress theme do and don’ts, theme do and don’ts and niche theme talks. More the merrier! I’d also love more type tags on the .org repo bbPress, whatever.

As shown by this lengthy comment it’s something that excites me. To recap my end points to my talk, I’d love to see more niche market places, more places that focus on just a type of theme. I’d love this to be BuddyPress themes, bbPress themes and beyond. I’d love a world where someone could have an amazing theme shop that just sold Sport club BuddyPress themes. There is a need, yes it’s smaller but it’s one that’s an untapped market.