"Also, what is wrong with themes on themeforest? Many are built with great design in mind."
That's the issue with cheap templates. They are designed and built by web people with no connection to your organization. You then buy this template and shoehorn your own content, and hopefully goals into a template without ever thinking about what your site should look or work like. Templates serve a purpose at the extreme low end of the market but soon every organization should graduate to a process that does not begin with a template.
Would you use a template as the basis for your entire software project? Would you use a template for your business plan? Certainly there's a case to be made for both, but neither is ideal for anyone seeking success.
When you start a Rails or Django project you're using a template. When you use Bootstrap you're using a template. When you use the business model canvass you're using a template. And forget cheap, those templates are free.
People use templates in successful projects all the time. Don't generalize. I'm sure a lot of sites have found success in their niche using themeforest as well.
If you want to compare apples with apples then it would be better to compare Bootstrap or Rails with some of the "framework" themes (like Genesis) that exist for platforms like WordPress. They stop short of design and mostly provide the designer and developer with a common language.
A complete theme usually has a lot more than just tools, conventions and code examples. It's a complete design, and content implementation, all you have to do is stick in your logo and copy and you're done. Not exactly the same process as using a framework.
Although I also dislike frameworks (Bootstrap high on that list) for the same reasons (shoehorning is encouraged) I don't think it's an appropriate comparison.
> You then buy this template and shoehorn your own content, and hopefully goals into a template without ever thinking about what your site should look or work like.
Templates work fine if you simply reverse the order here: think carefully about how you want the site to look and work, then look to see if there is a template that is reasonably close. If there is, it's a huge savings in cost and time--even if you have to alter the template a bit. Graphic design and front-end coding are expensive by the hour.
Templates are tool. They can be used or abused. Used well, they can save you weeks of work.
There is a lot of convergence in website goals. Blogs aren't that different from each other, portfolios aren't that different from each other. Sure, you'll take on more constraints than building your own from scratch, but you also might be a lot faster, which often outweighs everything.
That's the issue with cheap templates. They are designed and built by web people with no connection to your organization. You then buy this template and shoehorn your own content, and hopefully goals into a template without ever thinking about what your site should look or work like. Templates serve a purpose at the extreme low end of the market but soon every organization should graduate to a process that does not begin with a template.
Would you use a template as the basis for your entire software project? Would you use a template for your business plan? Certainly there's a case to be made for both, but neither is ideal for anyone seeking success.