Template rejected. Need your opinion.

My recently submitted template was rejected. I would love your opinion on what I can do to improve it because frankly I’m stumped on why it got rejected in the first place.

Here’s the link: http://www.webdesigndeluxe.com/themeforest/vertigo/index.html

And the email:

We're sorry, your item Vertigo - Premium HTML Template has not been approved for
 sale on ThemeForest. This is the reason given by our item inspector:

This File Did Not Meet Our Criteria

Thanks so much for taking the time to submit this template. Unfortunately, due to our 
high standards, your template has been declined.

Your template's design does not meet our approval standards and will need to be 
significantly improved before being reviewed again. I'm not able to list specific 
areas or aspects your template needs to be improved in (in terms of design). 
Some aspects of a template design include typography, graphics, spacing and 
layout. I recommend you begin by evaluating these areas and making improvements 
as necessary.

- -

Before resubmitting, please also ensure your template meets the following conditions.

- Validates properly
- Coding is current with today's standards
- Template documentation uses our template or one of higher design quality
- You've obtained licensing for all template sources for copyright

Note: This doesn't mean your template doesn't meet the above conditions. I'm just 
asking that you be sure your template does to avoid being declined.

**Template Validation**

Templates must validate according to W3C standards. You can validate your files 
at [HTML] http://validator.w3.org and [CSS] http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

**Current Coding Standards**
- Code should be well formatted for easy reading and editing including at least 
minimal code commenting.

- Lists should be used appropriately and tables should not be used for anything but 
tabular data. Examples of using lists properly can be seen here: 
http://files.jremick.com/ThemeForest/List-Examples.txt

**Documentation Template**
Our documentation template can be found here: 
http://blog.themeforest.net/site-news/building-better-template-documentation/

This is an example only and your documentation must include more in-depth information
 on HTML and CSS structures, JavaScript and PHP usage and template sources. You may 
use a documentation with improved design if you wish. Text files will not be accepted.

The documentation uses the template that TF asks for, everything validates to W3C standards, the coding is easy to read with many comments, lists are used properly for the navigation, tables are not used, and I explained clearly in the documentation how to use everything. So i’m really not sure why it did not get approved, so any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

div.scrollContainer should be unordered list

Try using cufon instead of images for titles

Also i’d like to see a contact page, and the side-tabs working… aswell as a working portfolio with sample images and information

Thanks guys Anyone else?

Hi, nice theme!

I think it looks great, I don’t see a reason why it was rejected

The template is really nice, it’s out of the box. But there’s something about the visual hierarchy that bothers me. It feels like the template is underfed or suffers rachitis.

Maybe it’s because of those light gray shades, I’m not sure.

You know that in most cases you open up a template and everything says “Look at me first” (which is never good). Well, in your case everything says “Don’t look at me, I’m shy”.

This should be the weirdest piece of critique I’ve ever given.

What the poster above may be saying is that your template doesn’t have any focal points. It’s great to use the grey/pastel tones, but you need to contrast it with bright colors for focal points.

Secondly, work on your design hierarchy, in addition to color, users need typography and structure to help guide them through the design.

It’s a great start, good luck on improving it!