Yeah, I think that shipping WordPress with two new themes would be a great idea Jeffro.

The default theme should definitely be something that looks good right out of the box so that newbies aren't turned off from WordPress. It seems like something that could be skipped because it is just so easy to switch themes. But there are so many websites out there sporting the default theme at any given time that improving that theme can only make WordPress look better.

And I'd love to see a basic framework included as a second theme. This would be useful for so many people, from novices just trying to figure out how it all goes together, to experienced designers that need a skeleton to use as a springboard for that next project.

In fact, I think that they should include a framework, and use that framework in a new default theme. Then users who download WordPress can easily see how the framework can be refined into a full theme.

This would also mean that both of the "official" themes are the same under the hood. which would make them much easier to provide support for since the answers would generally be the same.

Someone in the podcast mentioned that maybe only Sandbox should be included, and then a child theme to make it look good by default. This is interesting since it would be easier for new users to create or modify a child theme rather than a complete theme.

And it would also cut back on "bloat" since there would only be one theme shipped, which would make some users happy... But I think it would overly complicate things and lead to a lot of confusion for newbies as to what was a child and what was a theme unless the developers committed to making that the standard.