In reply to Andre.

Instead of focussing on design reviews per se, I think the best designs should be brought to the front of the repository, and traffic driven to them. This doesn't need to involve long manual reviews. A simple star system from approved and unapproved dot org users would work fine IMO. That way it can be automated, and not create a backlog like the regular theme review process.

This gives motivation to theme designers to create something amazing looking, but does not block crappy looking junk from being submitted. Also, one persons junk may be another persons Picasso, so I don't see any point in blocking something purely based on it being an eye sore.