There should be a required or recommended list of standard WordPress hooks that theme developer place in their themes so people can place modular code in their theme, without editing the theme. Only a few themes have them right now and they each use their own naming convention.
This would benefits plugin developers and people who use plugins. People who add in modular code from tutorials or help forums. People who customize their own site or others.
Without this standard, the line between themes and plugins is going to get blurred and things are going to get worst in term of themes. Theme developers are now adding more and more theme options, because plugins can't do the job, due to the lack of hooks in WordPress Themes.
Themes like Thematic, Hybrid, and Thesis get that theme hooks are needed.
Suggested hook format should be something like: theme_before_header, theme_header, theme_after_header, theme_before_entry, theme_after_entry...