I am having the same problem with the Black darkness theme, it's my favorite and only theme that i like so i am trying to edit it to get it to work..
The problem seems to be with the Info.plist file, i removed the file from the theme and retested and it works just fine..
The only problem in having no info.plist file is that it defines some settings, like the fonts and colors of the fonts.. so my fonts are stock without it.. I am going to try and rebuild the info.plist file.. i'll let you know if it works.
SSH into the phone and navigate to /Library/Themes/ and copy black darkness.theme into your desktop and you can see all that the theme contains.
I figured out what the problem is.. it's the lines in the info.plist file referring to the status bar..
i am going to try modifying some values and see if any work.
Ok its the following line
<key>StatusBarMode</key>
<string>1</string>
Unfortunately if you delete that it goes back to the stock status bar, but it won't disappear... Im going to keep trying.. if i don't post back then i couldn't fix it.
There was no work around for it.. It was the line StatusBarContentMode.. deleting it fixed the problem but removed the "custom" status bar icons and put back the stock ones which were too dark for the custom bar..
Changing the value made no difference..
I ended up just rebuilding the entire theme by changing the stock iphone icons with the black darkness.
I also did a little theme editing of my own and put the iElegance icons without the bottom reflection on the black darkness theme.. I really like it.. Now i have black darkness with ielegance modified icons..
And iElegance with font
This is a problem with winterboard and not the theme itself.. so just wait for a winterboard update.. the theme should work fine after winterboard is updated.