i think nobody has yet mentioned one reason that i believe is pretty influetial: before the xmodules and lslua, things were pretty static. there were far less options concering graphics, everything was based on images + magic pink, or some simple color configuration. nothing spectacular. however, at that time, themes were impressive, because (i'm not sure here... i'm talking about a time when i had very very limited internet access, if at all) there were many themers with a somewhat artistic claim, people that could put out a great looking theme every day. this was possible because all you had to do was to create a spectacular layout and extract some bitmaps from it, put them at their position, assign some functionality. done.
but as litestep and its modules improved and became more dynamic, things became more complicated, and the number of people being able to create a somewhat remarkable theme decreased. a theme without scripts will hardly be taken serious by most of us today, simply because scripting is established as something normal, and many features are not possible without. remember your first themes? mine had hardly any mzscript line in it - not that i couldn't script, but i didn't need scripts. today, when i start with a theme, the first things i'm actually doing are - sripts.
the other complicated thing is the xmodules. they're great, but they require many settings for their setup (of course this depends, but anyway - you can have a real big and confusing setup if you do some advanced stuff). NOTE THAT i don't blame the xmodules, but i love them (and did a small one myself :) ), but for the not-so-advanced user, they might be confusing, overburdening him or her with too many options and things you need to know. it's just natural, because the more features there are, the more configuration has to be done. it's not that difficult at all, but many of us have grown into using them, whereas new users are facing a big wall full of information. and people which are not into coding will pretty soon find that it's just too much for them. everybody wants to make cool themes, but not everybody is capable of it today.

pfff, i'm getting lazy writing this... time for a summary:
litestep's modules are advancing, providing incredible possibilities that no other shell in the world can provide. today's themes make use of these possibilities, and thus get more complicated*. this scares users away, but that's the price we have to pay (rhyme!).
a gui for litestep would either limit the possibilities, or, trying to keep them, lead into a project where the effort needed for the gui was as great or event greater than the actual shell (that's what i think, being a programmer. it's by far not an easy task at all).

well, enough said. long live the step! :)


* don't say "OS X can do incredible things and isn't complicated". OS X is f*cking complicated. it's just that all the complicated things have been taken care of by the programmers, and what you get is the final product with much less flexibility. in litestep, every theme must take care of a huge part of the programming (in a way) itself. that's what makes it so flexible. litestep is more powerful than your local hardware store.

p.s.: by chance, the platoon theme song was played here while thinking and typing about litestep's death... very pathetic, hehe :D

edit: p.p.s.: holy whatever, sorry for that long text. happened accidently... ;)