I've created a 5.3-based skeleton/micro-view-framework/freak-show for wordpress called Skellie.
It allows for cleaner templates and reusable partials and layouts.<p>You can use it to start a theme from scratch: https://github.com/thanosp/Skellie
Or to bc-refactor an existing theme: http://goo.gl/CF0km<p>It does not force upon you another templating syntax.
It's still wordpress but with proper, structured partials and should look familiar to ZF users.<p>It only takes over from Wordpress before rendering, so it should be compatible with almost all plugins.<p>I would like your feedback on it.
Try it on a template or two. See how much code you can reuse.<p>PS: Enjoy the lack of functions in functions.php :)