Will there ever be a scheme to allow users to rate themes?
The last litestep.net site has this useful feature.

did it? man, i must be getting old....

There is no fair way of coming up with a ratings system. Because of how this community has operated in the past on scheming to get the best rating or highest download count this information will not be available to the public.

well, if you want ratings without making it unfair, you could just randomly assign numbers for ratings.
it would be nice to have a rating system tho. maybe a "webmaster's pick" or a "newbie best" for people who are trying to get started.

Good idea Orpheus, a noobie rating would be great. Some themes are definitely more accessable to noobs than others.

Another thing that would be cool is to allow for a member to rank the theme on its variables: ease of use, layout, install proceedure, bugs etc. These rankings would not be averaged, but simply tied to the members comments on the theme. This way, there would be no need to try to have the highest ranked, or most downloaded theme. Everyone could see what others liked or disliked about the theme. I guess you could call it a "structured" comment.

rating only attracts trolls. i´m glad it´s gone. i like the "picks" idea though.

I like Orpheus idea on the random number thing. Only the author would know who's screenshot it was until the time they released the theme to be downloaded.

i'm glad there aren't ratings, given what has happened in the past. ;) that is not to say they wouldn't be useful, especially as suggested wrt to ease of use, bugs, etc. but it's probably just simpler not to have ratings at all.

if you have something to say about the theme why dont you just post a comment and give it a rating there = \

ex:this is a good theme for newbies!!!!!!!!!