Wordpress frameworks that don't suck

By now there is a considerable amount of WordPress code around that is meant to be re-used by other developers. Unfortunately there is little to none practical and solid information on it and generally you are stuck going through frameworks one by one until you find the first you like or think they all suck terribly (whichever comes first).

A community writeup on which frameworks and parent themes we really use and why.

I for one have always found it painful to find a decent wordpress master theme/framework to work off.