Fundamental customizations in Pro only?

I’ve spent quite a bit of time today trying to decide on a new theme. Finally settled on Colibri, and spent more time configuring it in the Live Preview before publishing it.

First problem: to change some settings it said to activate some editor. When I did that – still in the Live Preview mode – it caused the theme to actually publish, which ruined my website. (Yes, I made a backup first, and could recover.)

Then when I actually did decide to publish, things look different than what I saw in the Live Preview. Can’t put my finger on all the differences, but somewhat frustrating.

No problem, I’ll just keep working on customizing the stuff. It’s midnight, nobody is looking at my blog anyhow, some weirdness won’t be noticed.

But now, if I understand correctly, almost all of the customization options are in the Pro version only. Even basic typography and color selection??? I can’t change the color of my text without paying $60+?

I’ve tried a few different themes over the years, and have never encountered a free one that is as restrictive as this one seems, which is why I’m writing this: I know, “it’s free!” I can’t complain, but this is so restrictive that I feel I am missing something, like there is a whole area where I can change the color of my menu text that I am just not seeing.

(Yes, I found the Global Color part where I have two palettes to choose from, they are both nearly the same (and not what I want) and to change them, yep, Pro version only.)

So I figured I’d check here before I ditch Colibri, recover from the backup (again) and spend more time trying to find another theme. I’d even consider paying for the premium version, but at this point I’m so annoyed that I don’t feel great about spending $60 to find out what else I’ll be annoyed about next.