Would it be easier to build a theme?

[Glory2Jesus4Photography]

I have been working on revamping my site and if you look at my home/galleries pages you can get an idea in the direction I am going. http://glory2jesus4photography.smugmug.com. However it seems the more I try and get where I want to be my site slows down. My question is should I just try and build a them would that make things run smother and less patches in my css or just stay in the direction I am going.
I understand a theme would take me a long time but I would really like to get my site just how I want it. Any help is appreciated and if anyone has a base template they use to write there themes to let me use to get a jump start that would be awesome.
I came across this but it does not really help me that much. http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=32873
Thanks Corey

[jfriend]

Themes are best when you have multiple different looks that you want in multiple different parts of your site (e.g. a bunch of galleries with look A and a bunch with look B). If you want most of your site to have the same look, it's better to find a theme that you like as a starting point and then just add site-wide-customizations on top of that theme.

The other advantage of basing it off an existing theme is that as Smugmug evolves the site, they will keep the current themes working for you automatically. If you build your own theme you will have to maintain everything yourself. You may have to tweak some of your own customizations as the site evolves, but it will be less work than an entire theme.

Further themes have to cover a lot of screens that you may not even be thinking about like keywords, popular photos, search, password prompts, all the different viewing styles, etc... Usually it's easier to just concentrate on customizations to the few areas of the site that you care about the most rather than doing everything in all screens from scratch.

Also, once you put your customizations in a theme, it's kind of all or nothing. You can't have those customizations with a different base theme. As soon as you pick a different base theme, all your theme customizations are no longer active.

I would say that 99% of the time, it's better to use site-wide-customizations rather than make your own theme.

[Glory2Jesus4Photography]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Jfriend. Not exactly the answer I had hoped for because I do have a few clients that prefer a different look. (more to there style)
I am also having a bear of a time trying to get the look I want for large percentage of my site. If any one could tell me how to get a background to work the way I want that would be great.
This is the base of what I am going for.
http://glory2jesus4photography.smugmug.com/photos/599504176_L7wuA-L.jpg
but instead of just one photo for a background I want the top bar to float with the page. Now what I can not get is to have the background image fixed (it is long enough for a 30" monitor. and have it repeat vertically as well as have the bottom bar fixed at the bottom of the screen. This way no matter how big you take it it will look good the entire time.
If you think that is a challenge what tell you see what I would like to do with the navbar and buttons.
Any and all advice is welcomed. Thanks Corey.