What changed
New sites on a paid plan no longer pass through the generic website configurator on their way to being built. They go straight to the HexClad guided build.
The configurator is still there for the free plan, where it is the right tool: it is fast, it is self-serve, and nobody is paying for anything more.
Why
The guided build is the product on a paid plan. It reads your answers, writes a design brief, and assembles a site to our house standard. Routing a paying customer through a generic theme picker first was asking them to do the job twice, and the second pass threw away the first.
What you will notice
One fewer step, and the questions you do answer are the ones that actually shape your site.