I’m seeing a trend: it’s not worth editing an older theme. Just switch to Canvas.

We just wanted to go from two sidebars to one. Sure, some CSS (well, maybe a bit more than “some” … ) and maybe some changes to a page template or two, just a little digging in PHP and … oh, forget it. Why bother?

It’s quite a bit like the architect or contractor who looks at your old house and when you say you’d just like to do something simple like, uh, add a second story BETWEEN the existing first and second floors. He chuckles and says, “Sure, we can do that.” But if you trust him he’ll tell you to just raze the thing to the ground and start fresh. It’ll be:

1. Cheaper.
2. Better.
3. Faster.
4. Stronger in the long term.
5. Open to new ideas and changes.
6. Open up to ideas you hadn’t even thought of.

So when it is time to customize that old theme? That old template that you just love and can’t seem to part with? When it’s so custom and has so many tweaks and tricks that it’s not worth starting from scratch. But it’s also probably not even worth touching it. Just leave it happily the way it is and admire it … from afar. Because it’s probably going to come crashing down sometime soon. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next month, but soon enough.

Check out Jenny Attiyeh’s fresh new Canvas-sporting theme … that looks pretty much exactly the same as her old site at ThoughtCast.org.