Newspaper styles

Although I’ve created some magazine or newspaper styled themes, I am not quite sure how those themes fit the usual blogger:
can a daily poster compete with huge online resources like the NY Times?
For sure not, the newspaper manpower will kill almost all blogger resources.

So what is then the big deal for those online magazine styled themes for WordPress? Especially those “premium” themes with the paid attribute? Is it a hype? What is it good for?

Paying between $ 49 and $ 299 USD for a magazine layout, then to stick with it for one year?
What if the trends are changing? Then you’re OUT! What a shame then…

Why not go all the way round and having a complete customized layout?

To look or not to look like the average blogger around the corner? Sure, those “premium” themes are quite usable, but they are in need of a skilled coder or designer to customize the source code, otherwise they all look the same.

Additionally what are the goods of having a magazine styled website? To look like any other online newspaper (see below) or have your own brand? Having loads of different (important!) content adds a huge variety to each website/blog, but do those magazine type themes add any value to the site?