In reply to Chris Howard.

#2 is hilariously ironic! WP has one of the most inconsistent UI/UXs out there.

That's a fair criticism of WordPress, but not something that the Theme Review Team can single-handedly resolve. We facilitate the resolution to that issue by supporting core UI/UX wherever possible, and we have only enabled a worsening of the problem by facilitating the proliferation of scores of unique settings page UI implementations.

So you can’t argue consistency, because those theme devs with their own options page were often much more consistent with the WP UI/UX than customizer is or ever will be.

Look at the sheer number of unique implementations as the Theme Review Team has, and your opinion would likely change. The vast majority have not focused on core WordPress admin UI consistency, but rather the exact opposite.

So if you want to argue “consistent user experience”, tell WP to clean up their own backyard first.

That is an argument to make to the core development team and to the various UI teams - not the Theme Review Team.