It’s too complex and always will be.
Compared to making themes or plugins on PHP forums, Discourse is another level of complex.
All you can realistically change is very superficial.
A more complex layout is liable to break all the time as Discourse constantly evolves.
Pavillion do a great job and try to get around this with their monthly updates but it must be a pain (for Pavillion).
I see Discourse as being more and more for business sites.
It’s formal and rigid. Very unpersonal.
Great for business, boring for communities.
Discourse doesn’t do the fun forum stuff.
Follows, Whos Online, Emotions just basic (but non-business) community stuff took third party plugins and months of swimming upstream, butting heads to get. (Anything ‘social’ was fiercley opposed)
I can’t see much changing, the team has tunnel vision and it serves them well.
It’s great software and wouldn’t be what it is today without the focus.
I’ve learnt to use just use the dark/light official themes, official plugins only.
This is very limiting but it’s the way Discourse works.
If an enterprise customer pays for it … you might get it.
If you do ask for a feature, non-coders be careful … being asked to do a PR will stop your request now and also stop you asking for anything in the future.
There is a CLI for creating themes … not a friendly GUI.
Everything is complex and no attempt is made to make it friendlier.
Welcome to Geekland.