The whole premise of the argument is that we're all fans staring in awe at the big wonders of the parks on equal footing as outsiders.
It's not true. My definition is the one I've seen Marty Skylar and Tony Baxter chastise people over and as taught to me originally over a decade ago by Eddie Sotto as a mentor.
Our depth of knowledge and experience is not the same, our opinions do not hold equal footing.
You have to remember, that that's just Disney's approach to themed entertainment. Themed entertainment existed before Disneyland. Neither Walt Disney or his Imagineers invented it. It's just how they did/do it. With Disney, theme starts with a story with a moral. Which makes sense considering he had his animators/storytellers design the park.
Outside of the Disney bubble theme is almost always based on a concept, not a story. Such as "Hollywood", "Polynesia", "Holidays", "Dinosaurs", "Gators". And if the concept is a place, picking a certain time period such as "1930s Hollywood" is necessary to sell the theme. But a story about some fictional character doing some fictional thing to convey a idea like human ingenuity isn't necassary to sell a theme.
Time and place and story are not necessary for theme parks like Dinosaur World and Gatorland. And yet there is still clearly an over arching theme.
Disney peeps forget that they are not the end all be all of the themed entertainment industry. Applying the definition of "theme" from the literary world to theme parks makes about as much sense as applying the definition of "theme" from the music world to theme parks.
Wonder why they chose to have the exposed outer tubes with support spines?
It only struck me when they chose to have the slides be two-tone, but it begs the question why they don't hide the functional bits of the tubes at least with a slick exterior.
Because they want it to look like a hella fun water theme park. The same reason Hulk is big and bold. Which Disney peeps don't "get" either. They can't get past the visible coaster=6 Flags mentality. Universal doesn't try to hide the fact it's a theme park. They want coasters visible from the interstate (not so much the other way around though). It is a design philosophy that Disney fans will never understand, and they REALLY don't like it. But folks like myself do get it. I have been playing the "who will be first to spot the coaster" game since I was 10 in '73.
Every park has immersion breaks. If Big Thunder didn't have immersion breaks, it would just be a steam train. Universal, Busch (SW ENT.), and Herschend make their immersion breaks big and bold to ramp up excitement. And there are some excellent theme parks out there from those three park operators. It's a shame that Disney peeps are so caught up in their passion, that they truly have a really hard time enjoying non-Disney parks because of their preconceived notions of the definition of a "Theme Park". They really believe that if it's not done the Disney way, it's literally done "wrong". They remind me of when I used to hang out with Deadheads. Deadheads would only listen to the Grateful Dead, and in their opinion ALL other bands did it wrong. While I love the Grateful Dead, I would never say that Led Zeppelin did it wrong because they didn't do it like The Dead.