I’ve always been a little reluctant to use theme frameworks because learning other people’s code foibles often feels like a battle not worth fighting. However, as I’m now developing WordPress themes, plugins etc as a primary source of income, it made sense to bite the bullet and get on with it!
I originally picked Genesis (over other theme frameworks like Thesis et al.) because I wanted one of the child themes for another site of mine (WAHMweb community) and it was through building upon the premium child theme that I began to understand the power in this simple framework.
Better still, when StudioPress held a massive sale just a few days later on their entire theme + framework package, they were happy to refund me the cost of the single child theme so that I could buy the full package at the sale price. That’s sterling customer service that you just don’t see very often.
Since then I’ve come to use several of the premade child themes as well as building my own for dev clients; I also offer several of the premium themes through the WAHMweb Network to my customers. I am finding no end of places to use these themes! I’m currently rebuilding my personal blog theme on Genesis, too.
I’d like to offer some tricks for GF users, as well as (maybe) a couple of simple child themes if there’s anyone interested… do shout in the comments if you are.