Are "no Theme Forces allowed"events going to become a thing?

Excellent point in wanting just a cool model will cost too much. Say, a Cankerworm in Cryx is not just 9 pts, its a whole lot more and definitely competitively unplayable.

I start to dislike themes more and more. Would like to hear an argument what good they do for the game? They do good for PP for sure, and balancing themes against other themes is certainly easier than balancing factions.

For example, themes remove the need for certain factions to have buffs if they just have strong themes. Which is simply bad design and a lazy way out.

Yes, but the themes that have been released to date are not going to go back into CID(as far as we know). So the themes that currently exist are stuck the way they are.

Which is a shame, since we have a number of "vital" themes that are already out and are all over the board in terms of power. The themes released so far generally cover the core units of their factions. Which is a problem since they're really in need of a rework.

Like the Exemplar and Flameguard themes. They really needed to be in CID. But they're not going to be for the foreseeable future. Yet those are what I would call the necessary core themes of the Protectorate. Flameguard and Exemplars are the main body of the faction, and yet their themes are pretty underwhelming. And even our Jack theme is just boring, as well as underpowered.

What really? So everyone's going to get a Bane-esque CID cycle? That's...really good, though it'll take forever.

I guess it's how I feel from my main faction's perspective. In Protectorate the huge majority of things is viable all by itself and themes don't help those few non-viable models but rather make those that are already good even better (eg. Amon or actually any jack spam)

I don't think I can name many models that are now good in themes but haven't already been outside them. But there's a huge list of options that don't make sense now, because just staying in theme provides so much benefit. Like trying to build a jack heavy army with a small amount of infantry/solos. It's better to just not take them, take more jacks instead and have free support. Or all those out of faction mercs. For example a cool addition of Rorsh and Brine to a speed+maneuver Reznik1 army makes no sense and neither does supporting a jack gunline with Gastonne Crosse and Kell. Those options just lose so much.

I can see how it is different in other factions, though (Tharn, Revenants etc)!

I wouldn't use "extremely powerful". The Exemplar theme is just average in terms of it's power level. Couple that with being boring as it could possibly be, and yes it is underwhelming.

If you want "extremely powerful" themes, look at Khador and Cygnar.