As was mentioned above, iThemes does business/CMS style themes almost exclusively, and they do them well. Not sure what’s so bad about that? There are plenty other theme companies out there that only do 1-2 types of themes, so the criticisms above could apply to any one of them.

Finally, I personally take exception to the “lack true development skills” language. If a theme company doesn’t make the TYPE of theme you like, then fine. But a drive-by comment like that should probably be kept to yourself.

I am appreciative that people HAVE brought things to our attention and thank you all for your comments both good and bad because it does help us become stronger and better.

iThemes doesn’t seem to push out magazine themes, video sharing themes, abstract designer blog themes like some of the other mentioned sites. For developers who are cranking out sites for small businesses who just need a simple web presence that is easy to update, there’s no way they would choose the Abstract theme or the Urban Elements theme for example. Small businesses are looking for clean, professional looking themes and iThemes seems to fill a niche that caters to small business sites. Plus, iThemes is one of the few (if not only) developers that integrate video tutorials of using the theme and using WordPress. Many clients love that feature if they are new to wordpress.

Just wanted to add my comments.

I’ve never been one to really appreciate controversy within these types of discussions and would rather interact with people one-on-one instead of starting a flame war in the comments section of a blog post.

So with that, I’ll just let our actions (plans, and products) do the talking for us. And in the future, maybe we can change your minds about iThemes. :)

@Chris Jean – Well, in this day in age, if no one sees any public activity on a company blog or in various other circles for about 2 weeks, people start thinking the company/service is dead. Weird, but that is how it is. Until proven otherwise, speculation about the death of the company ensues and only continues to grow and get wilder. Of course, if there is nothing wrong with the company, the longer they keep silent the worst the chatter becomes.

@Nathan – Do you have any further information to backup this opinion? In the past two years of being involved in the WordPress community, I’ve seen nothing to indicate this to be true of iThemes.

Looking forward to the upcoming “cool stuff”.

I’ve been so focused on getting projects rolled out the past few weeks that I’ve turned off all distractions, including Tweetdeck. So I was very surprised and dismayed when Cory shared with me that rumors about the company were floating around.

We’ve got some cool stuff coming up, and we can’t wait to share it with our customers. Now I need to bury myself in the work again so that I can get it ready. :)