I'm very experienced with converting PSD to xhtml/css but still fairly new to xhtml/css to wp conversion so I'm learning now.. (Coding for my own new site) I was creating my new theme on FelixTan.com from "twentyten" template, then I realised there's too many redundant files in that template, anyone know where I can get a base template with only the essential files required for the template to work? 404.php archive.php footer.php header.php index.php page.php sidebar.php single.php I'm sure I'm missing out some as well
I've actually started using TwentyTen as a base theme a lot of the time, I just delete most of the templates before I start so everything falls back to index.php. Tried a couple from this list before but never really found anything to my liking, so now I'm making my own instead. Perfectionism is a curse! Maybe you'll have more luck.
There are a couple free wordpress frameworks out there. Here is a link with a couple http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/27/wordpress-theme-development-frameworks/
I prefer to use frameworks. My favorite free framework is Thematic. My favorite paid/premium framework is Genesis (not an affiliate link).
I tend to use thesis if I have clients that can't afford an entire theme from scratch. It's currently a paid solution, but you can get a developer license fairly cheaply, and the code is highly organized. It's a great starting point, if Thematic isn't enough for you. If you have no budget, Thematic is a great start, but shouldn't be a long term solution. It's just not a aesthetically pleasing.