I’ve put together a new example theme based on this template. As the name suggests, this one’s a tribute to the original Central theme! 
I loved the layout and visual style of Central and I’ve been packaging some of its features into standalone components, like the Custom User Menu and several sidebar blocks.
I realized that with the sidebar and some styles, this template actually gets you a good way towards the original theme’s look and feel.
In any case, I’m not planning to fully re-build the Central theme.. but I might still experiment with a dedicated topic list style down the road. If you’re curious and want to take a look, the theme is also live here: https://central.kostka.studio