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And how would one suggest this be implemented with WordPress?

Making the creative portion an entirely different codebase/downloadable that is licensed under something else.

If, like WordPress, you want to enforce GPL compliance for derivative projects, then spell out clear exceptions to your derivation clause - if they even just spelled out themes it would have made this problem moot.

I feel like they don't want to spell it out. It allows them to gain a ton of value and IP to then wrap up and sell on their site as part of a service (without giving anything back).

It doesn't seem that WordPress wants to make an exception. That is, the license without exceptions is functioning exactly as they intend, and they think ThemeForest is doing something wrong, not should-be-right-but-is-technically-wrong.

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