At first I thought it was a great way for experienced theme authors to get in as a TA, but it didn’t take long for some authors to take advantage of it which was frustrating to see.

But, I guess the good thing here is that all themes are now back in a single queue. Although, I would like to see the Admin final review queue removed.

However, to stop the unfair benefits of the commercial sites benefiting hugely from the popular list, many making 10’s of $1000’s per week in upsells because they solidified the Popular list with their download+active install counts, it’s unfair for other authors who will never really get a chance to reach the upper spots. If I remember reading right, zerif lite was making something like $10,000 per week in upsells. Then you have Godaddy at the top…what smaller theme author/shop can compete with the big traffic entities when they grab a foothold on the popular list.

Long story short, the review process and the directory needs a major overhaul. The Popular List needs to GO!