"Child Themes" within a Theme on WordPress.org?

Hi, all. I’ve been developing a theme that is designed specifically for modern, flat-style design with full-width images, colored sections, etc. It is built on the _s theme and uses Bootstrap for styling and user content on pages and posts. I’m also developing several “child themes” to be released at the same time or shortly thereafter.

The “parent” theme is NOT a theme framework, its built specifically to look like any standard WordPress theme. However, I want to release several variations of it WITHOUT having to release them as child themes. The reason being that I want users and developers to be able to create their own child themes. I also don’t want to have to maintain the same code base within 5, 10, or more different themes.

So I’ve devised a clever way to house a “child theme” within a theme, but I don’t know whether WordPress.org will allow it. The idea is that within the parent theme there is a “/theme” directory that has a functions file, style sheet, and maybe a header file and/or some other files from the template hierarchy. The functions file in the /theme directory gets loaded (if it exists) first in the parent functions file and works exactly the same way as a functions file in a child theme… you can override what stylesheets and scripts get used, override theme functions, etc.

This concept can also be extended to a “/custom” directory, which I will never overwrite, but users / developers could use it just like my /theme directory. I’ve got sample files in there now and it works great. Although this feature isn’t necessary because real child themes can be used.

Does this sound like a good idea? Do you think that WordPress.org would allow this type of feature? If not the /custom directory, but at least the /theme directory?