Hi IonRutz,
I ended up going with a different theme. That one had problems too although not a WSOD. the customizer wouldn’t update any custom css. The customizer problems with the other theme seemingly resolved when I disabled jetpack.
I’m still trying to rebuild my original site. It’s my 2nd WP site and my first BuddyPress site. I guess I didn’t realize how many plugins & themes would have to be updated to work with WP 4.5.
I think maybe next big upgrade, I’ll resist updating anything for at least 3 months unless there’s a big security issue.
Custom Community looks like a cool theme, I’ll try it out for my next small non-profit site redo.