None of them are free...
I believe you are mistaken. Both Underscores and Cornerstone, as far as I can tell, are completely free and can be downloaded from GitHub.
The Genesis framework is not free, but I can see that it comes with some predefined ready-made templates. I need to look into it further.
You're right. Genesis framework is not free; I was wrong about that.
If I remember right, I think it was free in the past. However, given how much time it has saved me in developing each new website, I find $50 more than a worthwhile investment.
The free templates for Wordpress sucks, to be honest, the only way to have a nice template with Wordpress is by paying for it, and the best site to buy a Wordpress theme is
https://themeforest.net/category/wordpressI believe you're missing the point of what WP Starter templates stand for. These are core templates for developers, not ready-made templates that you can simply install and use on your website. This is the starting point from which you can create your unique-looking website. Many professionally built templates, including commercial templates available on the envato market, have these starter templates as their foundations.
The only way to create a nice site for free is with a HTML template, but for this, we should have basic knowledge about HTML and CSS.
I don't think you're right about this. WordPress is a very popular platform, with tens of thousands of free templates available. True, most of them will not give you full control over changing the design to your requirements and preferences, but it is wrong to say that all free templates are bad.
The only way to have full control over design and content is to build your own template from scratch or use the starter templates. Of course, I'm not going to downplay the value of hiring a skilled front-end developer, but that doesn't mean that no one can't create a nice, functional website on their own.