My Dear Wordpress theme designers, both free and premium. No one appreciates the work that you do more than I. It is because of your knowledge and skill that many of us are able to see our vision come to life. I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart , for it is because of you that the Wordpress community has been able to grow so large and become so diverse... HOWEVER, there are a couple of things that you do that really tick us off and inhibit your success as a theme designer. Please allow me to help you help yourself, and be the kind of theme designer that people want to use exclusively. Please stop doing these things: Overriding embedded natural functions with CSS coding There is nothing more frustrating in the world than finding out that the theme that you are using or have paid for will not let you justify images wherever you see fit because the designer has seen fit t take that function away from you and make it so that all images will be justified where he wants them to be. This is an asinine move because you can't predict how people will want to use the theme. There was a time where I would hunt down the offending code and undo what the designer has done just so that I can use the theme. These days, I just dump the theme and make sure that I never use anything by that designer ever again. Even if I paid for it. Hiding Links It's OK. We know that some 'Free' themes aren't completely free and that many designers sell links on a theme, usually in the footer. But don't hide another 6 links in images, buttons or in the Dashboard settings. It's one thing to know where the links are and accept them as a trade off, but hiding links makes me wonder what else is coded into this theme that I don't want any part of...and again..I avoid any future themes from this designer like a bad plague because I can't be sure what I'm getting. And while we are on that.. Stop releasing themes and claiming "Creative Commons..free to use and enjoy however you see fit" yet attempt to force the links on us by encrypting and hiding them. It's either one or the other: 1. Use the theme at no charge but the links stay. or 2. Use the theme freely under Creative Commons and no obligation to market someone's hosting or pharmaceutical blog. You don't get it both ways. Ditching Support I can deal with using a theme that seems stable and offers no support, especially with free themes, but...if you are going to claim to offer support, then do it. Don't answer a few questions for a week or so and then weeks go by before you announce "no more support", or lose patients with answering questions and start telling people to "look it up on Google". If this is how you are now, then there is no reason for me to expect any different if I were to purchase a theme from you in the future. These are just a few simple things that you can do to help yourself and make your themes and services coveted, instead of avoided. I rarely use free themes anymore, and these are some of the reasons. And some of the free theme designers of the past are now premium theme designers and I still will never use them because of these few simple things that were completely unnecessary back when I used their free stuff.