I got the Headway theme when it was released and have nothing but praise for it. Like you, I’m not a coder and this always made me use Thesis less than I could have (I changed from Thesis to Headway). Now it’s a lot simpler and I can really go to town on the design. This is something I put together in 4 hours as a test (no CSS, no HTML):

http://portfolio.pressreleasepr.com

I agree that the forums are “sparse”, although they have only been going two weeks so that’s understandable! And Clay and everyone over there are fast at getting you an answer.

RE. the skins, much like the Thesis community I think we’ll see a bunch of great stuff from other users soon, and I know Clay has some ideas for Headway 1.5, due to be released next month.

Look forward to seeing your site take shape!

Danny.