I read the article you posted and the comments and indeed the combination of free CMS systems and free or cheap designs is killing the business.
I still write everything myself because the demand at work is too complex and so are the queries that is a mixture of databases of different applications.
The same for private customers, all selfwritten to the demands so not 1 button or field too much in the back end and easy to use.
At design I suck but you can outsource that part to services like designcrowd.com ,
not cheap when it's already a big cut of your budget but still better than my own "artwork" or a design that already 3926 sites use.