does using litestep improve performance compared to explorer or is it theme dependent?
Search for minimalist themes if you want extra performance. Otus is one of my favorites, I got mem usage down to 5 megs with it (compared to explorers 13).
On average, I get half the memory usgae from ls than from explorer. Some themes/modules are resource hogs though.
It does depend on the theme, and other factors that I don't know about. My themes typically run from 2.5-5.5MB, and I have no clue why they change :).
In the past I rationalized my Litestep use by the claims that it was faster and hogged less memory, and being the little hacker-wannabe this was enough. Nowadays, however, my themes have evolved, and though they still consume very small amounts of memory, I definetely cannot say the same about CPU time.
This is of little significance though, as computer processing power has grown exponentially and most LS themes have not matched that.
All in all LS should not be used because it consumes less memory or recources, as I believe both memory and resources are much cheaper than the frustration you experience learning this thing.
Litestep is good because it can do things Explorer cannot.