Well, it was time to get off one of Drupal's default themes and back to my own. So, after working through phpTemplate, I think I've made some progress. I hage a handle on how to make it work and output a bunch of div statements with which to manipulate with css.

Of course, now, we are down to css and all the little things about positioning. The rough shape is here now. Need to work a little on tweaking the positioning of the left and right columns, make the header appear the same in IE and Firefox and style all the text and links.

Of course, I waited until near the freeze of 4.7 and release candidate series. On the bright side, I understand this a bit more. Now, to chat with some of my friends who know css better, but not phpTemplate. If I can get them to each do one or two themes, we can do some color changes and contribute them in a theme pack. We'll see.