Over the past year, I’ve developed a strong affection for the premium WordPress themes released by the iThemes team.   They truly do a great job of filling the smaller niches or whatever needs the WordPress community has.

Their latest creation, the Flexx theme, is the most flexible WordPress theme ever created.  To back it up, they are advertising that this theme comes with over 1,000 possible layout combinations!

Other Flexx features include:

• Rotating Header Images – Easily upload your new header images and set the Flash-like transition effects
• Contact Form Page Template – The custom image uploader feature allows you to personalize your site with your own logo
• Plug and Play Graphic Changes – Easily change the look of your site by uploading new background images (setting every different combo with it) and setting the color through a Photoshop-like color picker.
• Menu Builder – Pick and choose what Pages you want in the menu navigation, including subpages.
• Search Engine Optimization – As with all our themes, we’ve built it to get you the best exposure in the search engines, and include a SEO panel to tweak some basic settings.
• Multiple Color Styles - This first series comes in two pre-built color styles (Bold and Canvas), but it has a rockin’ feature that lets you easily upload new background images (setting every different combo with it) and setting the color through a Photoshop-like color picker.
• Drop down navigation menu

To get an idea of one of the 1,000+ possibilities available, you can check out the Flexx demo.   Here are a couple screen shots:

Flexx Homepage

The best part about the new Flexx theme is the price!  It falls under the iThemes standard pricing model of $79.95 for a single-use license and $249.95 for the developer’s license.  iThemes 2008 theme club members of course get this theme for free.

Check out the Flexx demo to get a full appreciation of all the options available with this theme.

Single-Use License $79.95 | Developer’s License $249.95

Source/Demo | Download

As the premium WordPress themes market continues to grow and competition becomes more intense, it is only natural to begin looking towards the future of premium WordPress themes. We all have different opinions of what that future holds, but one thing that is for sure. Widgets are going to play a huge role in the future of these premium WordPress themes.

The first theme that appears to be almost completely built around widgets is the Shifter WordPress theme, which features a fully customizable dashboard with widgets for pretty much everything.

Here are two screen shots of sample homepages (remember this is Widget based, so there are literally hundreds of possibilities for your custom homepage):

And here is another example:

Though I feel obligated to provide screenshots, I’m not sure a simple screen shot does this theme justice, so you may want to click over to check it out.

Single-Use License ($79.95) | Single-Use License w/author support ($99.95) | Advanced Shifter License ($199.95) | Developer’s Pack ($999.95)

Source/Demo | Purchase