When I first started with Rapidweaver I always found the themes back then far to restrictive. I spent a long time learning how to edit the theme to get things how I wanted, but was never really happy with the results.
I then worked out you could start with a blank theme and build something entirely from scratch, so to speak, so using Will’s Blank theme and a handful of mostly Doobox stacks I built my first commercial site, for a client.
Then I discovered frameworks and never looked at themes seriously again, until recently. Over the proceeding years I did dip in and out of themes but always ended up frustrated so went back to using a framework. Recently though I’ve done a tiny bit of beta testing for some developers on what I can only call the new generation of themes and have been blown away.
By “new generation” of themes, I’m talking about regular themes but with way WAY more control than older ones, plus a great selection of dedicated stacks to further customise the theme and add content.
To my mind these now represent the best place for those who have found the limits of “regular” themes but don’t want to go with a full-blown “blank” canvas framework.
Recently @Lucas has been making some incredible themes like the one described above. You get the standard theme plus a host of stacks to take things further. Parallaxis is one such example. It’s a beautiful theme and can be purchased with a bundle of its own stacks. Pizzaro is another example.
Lucas isn’t the only one doing this, a few other devs are going in this direction, and personally I think it’s the future of themes in RW.
As for frameworks, like most I started with Foundation, then added in Foundry, I picked up Platform along the way, Source too, and UIkit.
Over the last few years, my client base has grown to about 60 in total, of which about half are regularly maintained by us. I still have a few clients on old Foundation sites, but most now have been upgraded. For new projects I use UIkit; not particularly because it’s better than the others, but because it best suits my way of working. I have a staffer now and she uses Foundry. I opted for that framework for her because she’s new to the business and I figured it was the best place for a framework newbie to start.