Ever since I started digging into the WP theme world, I’ve suspected that “premium” means one or both of:

• It has an options panel bigger than WP itself, which may or many not be secure
• I suspect that you, the buyer, will believe that “premium” makes it better. Also, there’s this nice bridge in Brooklyn…

Technically, it doesn’t even really apply to paid themes: when I start to type “free premium” into Google, the first auto-complete result is “… WordPress themes”. Sigh.

Evan Solomon has a terrific post up called “Premium Themes” are a lie full of actual data and stuff that this here post lacks. I think the point he makes at the end is terrifically important: way up on the list of the people who really stand to lose from this mess are the makers of good commercial themes. They’re out there, and they do some great work that I happily recommend, and wouldn’t hesitate to use myself (whenever I’m not mucking around in the guts of my beloved _s, anyway), and most important, they back it up with solid support and real transparency.

You know, the way businesses are supposed to act.