Thank you! for the pointer to the theme review guidelines, and, by reference, to the theme unit test. I had not found those. To a highly experienced tech guy new to PHP and WordPress, it looks like significant effort to actually check a theme for conformance for the first time. Perhaps I can get the new theme vendor to do it.
Likewise I had not found the plugins requirements. As you say, those look more like moral directives than a set of filters of the type I am looking for.
Helpful comments, keep them coming.
