I went with an older, more established theme. Overall, I'm happy with my choice. There is a lot of flexibility and options to choose from. I had few issues - and when I had questions, most of them were found in the forums - so great customer support. Where needed, I got quick answers.

Given that this is older and "retrofitted," there were times when the use of VC was limited. Much of the demo pages were traditional short codes fit into VC - so not really using the full functionality. And, there were no theme specific VC elements /templates. I also am new to using Portfolios - used this as a custom post type. The way the theme addresses Portfolios also feels like a "hardcoded" fix - there you have to set up Post Categories in a specific way to "filter" our Portfolio posts vs. Traditional Posts. It worked in my case - but I have a feeling this is a limited construct vs. newer themes.

Overall I'm very happy. Some newer themes with newer "bells and whistles" have been buggier and have less options for creativity. So there are tradeoffs. In this case, I was happy. What I do for my next project is still debatable - but will depend on each client.