Hi All, interesting to see a variety of comments on this. I just had a chance to check out the Theme Directory revamp and I must say I am appalled, they took something marginally useful and made it worse.
I teach a class on WordPress and one of the things that students find most difficult to do is to find a theme that's going look like what they want and do what they want. The new design took away the basic need that new users have in trying to choose a theme and that need is information. They don't give a rats ass about the daily rate of downloads or popularity, they want to know what it looks like and how to set it up. One of the best parts of the old theme directory was the link to the developer's website where they could usually see it in action in a demo. Now that is gone.

The irony here is that there is an excellent model for how a theme directory can work and it's right there at WordPress.com. There you have, for most themes, a really long page with all kinds of info, even a section on recommended pixel dimensions on key image elements. There's also examples of that theme in use in the wild, which is priceless for new users to see what can be done with a theme. And there's also a demo page. How hard would it be to port-over at least some of these things?
Now when I cover themes in my class I'm having to recommend going first to WordPress.com and find a theme there and then hope that it also exists on WordPress.org. The new theme review page is more than a bad joke as the preview has always been, it's now also detrimental in that it will discourage people to use the WordPress platform at all.
I'm actually really steamed up about this, so if there is any one on this comment thread who can steer me to someone working on the theme directory, I have an earful of positive input I could give them.