Why all the Theme Parties?

Simply, they are fun to write, easy to transfer to other games and give readers an idea of what kind of encounters might be had in my games.

Also even without stats they beat the heck out of the old Rogues Gallery tourney style parties

Sqig Punanmer, Xagyg Bad Ref, Fatman Dwarfbeer and so on might have charm in a 1e kind of way but they are really only useful as they were intended, for tournament play.

Theme parties, even if you have to do the grunt work, at least root you in the world.