@dcoville001 Hi Diane.  

1.  When you say scrolling banner, do you mean the content slider like this StudioPress theme has?

http://demo.studiopress.com/associate/

2. Most of the StudioPress themes come with three or four featured widgets at the bottom.  If you just want to show a rotating image of logos, you can have a graphic designer create one GIF file that changes logos at specific intervals.

3. StudioPress does have different layouts for each page you create – usually up to three columns where 2 columns are sidebars and one column is the main page content.  Using the Widget Logic plugin, you can create different sidebar widgets and specify which widget will be shown for a particular page to create unique sidebars for different pages.

4. Can you show an example of this that you have seen elsewhere?

5.  I think that is a plugin - http://getpremise.com/ is created by the same people as StudioPress so there should be some way to connect the plugin to the child themes.

I would take a look at http://themeforest.net and you can ask the developer if they have those options.

I think Kristi laid it out pretty well that studiopress’ Genesis framework and associated themes can handle most of what you are looking for.  They also have a slider plugin if you want to incorporate that into one of their themes that do not automatically have that functionality.  http://www.studiopress.com/plugins/genesis-slider

For your table requirement, you may want to check out the following plugin – I banged it around some but have not fully utilized – may have what you need: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-table-reloaded/

It’s important to understand the difference between layout and functionality. Many of the things you’re requesting are simply design considerations that most certainly don’t need a plugin to achieve. Plugins are good to add functionality, but I definitely agree with @mlm2gether in that far too many people rely on plugins when they should instead, invest in hiring a professional that knows his or her way around WP from a developer’s standpoint. You’ll save yourself headache and money in the long run.

Personally, I also stay away from frameworks like Genesis and Thesis, as they too, have WAY too much code bloat and can slow your site down immensely. I create my own themes with the layout I require and try to build all my own functionality first, before relying on a proprietary third-party option.

I would love to add that functionality is very important, the user experience has to be an easy, quick loading, find-what-I-want visit. I feel that the goals of each business need to out way the bells and whistles of plugins. I also agree that hiring a technical partner is perfect solution, as the designer and programmer work beautifully as a team to satisfy the clients needs.

Not everyone has the luxury or know-how to code from scratch

I have used Genesis for several years now and am very happy with it. I have a few sites that are plug-in happy. There is no slow down on small sites, so don’t stress over that too much. Granted, if your site has thousands of visitors a day, code bloat and too many plugins could become an issue.

That said, not all themes are user friendly out of the box. I have bought more than one theme from ThemeForest.com, downloaded it and once getting to the theme admin area threw my hands up in disgust because it required pages worth of reading documentation to figure it all out.

At least Genesis and those of that caliber are user friendly and highly intuitive. Though not all of the child themes are created by expert designers (I’ve bought 2 recently that are so not up to par). 

I prefer Genesis because of the ability to use the “Simple Hooks” and “Simple Edits” plug ins to add code exactly where you want it. 

As for the table function, just like @Egaile said, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-table-reloaded/ , is a good one. I have it installed and have used it. I’m self taught when it comes to css and html, I’m still not 100% comfy with DIVs yet either lol

Speaking of code!! Every time I post I must remember to double hard return after every paragraph. It’s annoying and makes reading a PITA. Could we get that fixed?

I would suggest elegantthemes, they not only have the most impresive themes, but they have everything already installed, you can go live with your blog or website without installing any plugin. : Members Only Feature, amazing jquery effects, overlays, contact forms, image sliders, responsive designs they work on mobile devices out of the box and more.