I’d rather users be given bread than water and flour.

This is a great analogy from Philip. I agree completely. And I'm going to expand on it to the metaphorical breaking point. :) With themes it often seems like we're either offering competing loaves of bread or making sure the water and flour is pure and pristine but not really looking at the hunger itself. Or where it's coming from. And why so many people are starving.

I was going to say bakery instead of hunger but I think hunger sounds more dramatic.

Anyway, setting up a theme is hard. Regardless of your solution.

Tons of options? Built-in plugins? Customizer panels? There seem to be lots of disparate solutions with many problems from switching themes, to maintenance, to security, to learning a new piece of software sitting on top of WordPress itself.

On the other hand keeping things pure doesn't leave it any easier for users to create a great design. Though there's a good chance it'll leave them better off for the future and make setup easier if someone can guide them along.

It often feels like there are missing pieces in the WordPress experience outside themes themselves. Much like I wish more people released design ideas for future default themes it'd be great to see more people push forward on ideas and solutions that could benefit every theme and every user. Or, at the very least, it'd be cool if it came up as a discussion point in threads like this. What are the things users need to do time and time again? Why is setting up a cool home page so hard? What are the missing pieces for a great design and setup experience?