This article from http://blogmarketingjournal.com/2008/01/03/wordpress-template-or-custom-design/
WordPress Template Or Custom Design?
Writing by Brick Marketing Staff on Thursday, 3 of January , 2008 at 11:59 am
When you set up your new WordPress blog, should you go with a template or a new custom design. There are pros and cons to each.
Template - WordPress has many templates that you can choose from. The advantage to using a template is that it’s easy to pick one and install it at the click of a button. The downside is, not all templates are optimized for the best performance. This is easily remedied as you can always replace a template if it doesn’t work out for you. Another downside is that other people are using the same template. Do you want your blog to look like everyone else’s? If not, then you should go with a custom design.
Custom WordPress Theme Design - The problem with designers is that they are not created equal. If you find a good theme designer who knows SEO then keep him because that’s a rare bird. That said, custom WordPress themes are a good way to go if you want your blog to stand out. But it can be expensive. If it doesn’t fit your budget then you should just go with a WordPress template and work toward being able to purchase a custom theme down the road.
One way you can find a custom blog theme for your WordPress blog is to visit other blogs and evaluate the designers style. If you see a designer that you like - that is, you see several designs from a particular designer that catches your eye - then ask about his prices and be sure to ask about the optimization performance of the blog themes he designs. If he doesn’t know about the performance then chances are he doesn’t design optimized blog themes. It’s very important that you get a blog theme that is optimized and a good designer will know that his themes are optimized and be able to tell you how his designs fare at the search engines.
