Okay, I understand. It seems like it should be an easy thing based on the thread I posted. I'll guess I'll have to find out for myself.

You can customize it yourself, but as you stated before "but I have no idea what that means/where it is."

Support is here to support theme related issues(bugs install issues etc), we help with minor changes anything beyond that(custom work) will require you to hire someone to do so either through our partner or another freelancer

as for what they quote being unreasonable, my hourly is $50-100 depending on what Im working with(Design/code etc)

-Chris K

The last time I messaged the custom department over something that was seemingly trivial, I was told it would cost $500, which seemed unreasonable.

Is there really no way of doing this with ease?

Hello,

Your request goes beyond the scope of these forums you'll need to fill a customization request out http://themolitor.com/custom

-Chris K

I want to be able to have the posts checked for the parent category to show up, not the posts on children/grandchildren categories.

So
Menu Root - clicking this shows only the ones checked for that
Sub - click this shows posts checked for this sub
Sub Sub - etc.

I figure this is to do with writing something into the loop, but I have no idea what that means/where it is.

This seems to be trying to do that http://wordpress.org/support/topic/how-to-exclude-child-category-content-from-parent-category-default-display but I'm unsure where I'm meant to be putting the code.