But if forced to say good things about bluemarine... all I can say is that it is relatively simple. To fit with today's designs it would need the blue made more bold, time spent on the fonts, some whitespace around the page margins, something to make the blocks look like blocks other than a darkish gray background, and a markup overhaul around the column layout.
Yeah, I can agree with those things. In looking at the zen series, I think a strong case can be made that a 'BlueMarine-alike' skin for it would be a relatively straightforward step. I mentioned on IRC that BlueMarine offers something none of the variations presented so far do: With a dark header, relatively dark sidebars, and a light content area, it feels more like a 'frame around your stories' than any of the others do. I like that a lot, and I think a variation of zen that utilizes that approach, echoing the general layout of and style of BlueMarine, could be a really nice addition. --Jeff