I've been playing with the atahualpa theme for a couple of days. I'm pretty impressed so far.

I have been doing design (self taught css, html, and a little php hacking) for awhile now and have done extensive testing or design with wordpress, joomla, and several forum software/s as well as at least some testing with a ton of other scripts.

I've learned thru trial and error to stay away from most stuff that tries to give the end user much control via option panels and have actually come to prefer to do design, edits, etc.. etc.. the old fashioned way - by direct editing of the css, php, html files. BUT, thats because few people who develop these types of things allow for much control in the end for most than the most basic of changes and customization and very very few seem to have any documentation thats worth a poop. I think I may have found a real exception here !

Documentation is fantastic...notes and default examples are very clear. The more I dig around the more I can see how greater levels of customizations are possible for those of us who want to do this.
I'm actually starting to view this "theme", in conjunction with wp, as more of framework for site building (CMS) than a theme. It seems like an extension of wordpress that expands it in the same way as multiple plugins do much more than just a theme imo. It aint perfect (for my specific needs, yet) but its better than anything else I've run across by a long shot.

Kudos to the developer for the great design, documentation, support etc.. Keep up the good work. And its very cool that you accept donations rather than charge for this even tho it's better imo than any of the so called "premium" themes that I've tested with that do charge $ up front. I'm so broke I can't pay attention at the moment but assuming I do decide to use this for more than testing/experimentation you can rest assured that I'll get a donation or 2 headed your way.

In the meantime i expect you'll see me around the forums here asking questions and maybe making a few suggestions.

Thank you for the kind words, teros