Ben has some recommendations for wordpress publishers using the Hemingway theme (like I am of this writing).
While I agree with some of his suggestions – the undercurrent of the entire discussion is that visual presentation doesn’t really matter – let alone main pages.
Search engines shouldn’t index the main page of a blog (cause it changes lots) – only the links off it, so the likelihood of someone coming by the home page via a search engine should be low – Google et. al should be pointing to the category archive or permalinks.
Secondly, there’s a thing called RSS that delivers the web without a visual presentation. I read all my favorite and not so favorite websites through RSS (including Ben’s) – so I rarely see a what it looks like.
Between you and me, I’m a big fan of just trying on new themes. I’m doing this right now at the First Crack podcast and Working Pathways. When I find a few moments here and there, I’ll tweak the standard to more my liking or find an entire theme closer and repeat.
No, I’m not entirely happy with Hemingway – for some of the reasons Ben states. Yes, I’ve got some changes in the works – when will you see them…..maybe never. Especially if you’re reading this through the RSS feed.