[Theme] When creating a theme, how in depth does everyone go?

This is a general question but I can't think I'm the only one wondering.

I decided to try my hand at manila file editing about two weeks ago and have gone through 3 or 4 iterations of 'what do I want my theme to be' and finally decided. I wanted to make something unique but that would also lend itself to a crisp, clean look and let me use some cool icons.

What I'm realizing now is that after 120 or so icons I feel like I'm only about half way done if I want the ENTIRE look and feel to be consistent throughout. I don't want random 'highlights' to be in default green for example and it's getting more and more difficult to find the elusive manila file to modify.

So I guess the question is...how in depth do some of you theme makers go? How many manila file replacements do you end up processing? I'm not going to do weather, for example, and I'm not tackling stocks because...well...I don't use the app, but I want to make sure I cover all the major bases. And about how long does it take everyone else? I'm SURE there's a faster way than I'm doing it (by hand, using GIMP and Manila Editor 0.2 but frankly thos work REALLY well for me). I used HDWall to create the manila files for the slider and wallpaper icons but not to create the cab file because I didn't want to restrict it to people who weren't running HDWallS (for whatever reason).