So, in your opinion, would it seem too odd to visitors if Techinch.com looks entirely different than Techinch.com/apps? Would apps.techinch.com feel better if the site style is totally different? That said, I plan to get a more homogeneous overall theme by spring...
I'm not entirely sure how easy it is to do and it would take a bit of hacking with your Wordpress template, but as a compromise you could look at having each category page (so /apps, /widgets, /whatever) have it's own background image - although I imagine completely different themes or very different styles could be a bit of a nightmare.
We'll see how it goes!
I am not sure if this is the approach I would take, I very much like the homepage theme, however I am certain you have reason why you are doing what you are.
Good luck and keep us up to date.
What I'm thinking is that by having niche sites, I can feature a nice-designed app per day in a small post in a small post without swamping my main content. Similar to Greatwebapps.com ... and I hope to do a network of sorts of sites like that eventually. But, I'm not certain it's a good approach.
And, by the way, the content on techinch.com/apps is just filler test stuff, and is in no way the stuff I plan to use once it's publicly live.
Thanks for your suggestions ... I really appreciate them.