I've just spend a day in Berlin at the Drupal Design Camp - a day packed with sessions on rendering APIs, the Drupal Design Initiative, on how and why to use Drush and Aegir and more.
Actually there was very little actual design sessions, but talking to Morten revealed that the whole event should better be called "Frontend" instead Design - an approach that makes sense to me. "Frontend" would include not only design and theme and potentially also Usability but also issues like what themers require from a theme and what not, instead of separating coding and design as two completely different things that need to be dealt with for a good website.