In reply to Andre.

Unless we begin rejecting/failing themes, adding an additional design review layer will actually increase the amount of time that themes take to get through. However, it'd push well-designed themes through the queues faster, of course.

TRT is in the business of working with theme authors to bring their themes up to certain standards. The comparison with ThemeForest doesn't apply because they don't do "reviews" in the same sense. They have more of a pass/fail system, whereas TRT covers each specific issue with theme authors.

The official directory is a different beast. We try to be as all-inclusive as possible. We want first-time theme hackers as well as seasoned developers. That's why I, among several others on the team, are almost entirely against any sort of design review. It creates a larger barrier to entry for first-timers. There are some objective design issues that we're willing to go along with, but the biggest battle we must win first deals with the underlying code. A poor design never broke anyone's entire WP install. However, some poor PHP code has.

TRT's position is that we want to get rid of the initial review process altogether. That's the eventual goal. We want submissions to be automatically approved and set live. Then, we take the time to work with theme authors to fix any potential issues later. That's where I believe having design feedback would be most helpful.

The idea is to become less like gatekeepers and more like educators who pop in to help with things that improve the experience for the end users of these themes.