Update messed up Android Studio environment

Question

After updating Android Studio and everything related via the SDK Manager, I can no longer create the simplest of apps containing a single Blank Activity, because of all these rendering problems. Choosing an Empty Activity still seems manageable though.

Coming back to my Blank Activity issue, this is a summary of my environment:

Android Studio 1.5.1
Android SDK Tools 24.4.1
Android SDK Platform Tools 23.1
Android SDK Build Tools 23.0.2
Android Support Library 23.2

I see a ton of rendering problem error messages on both activity_main.xml and content_main.xml. I changed the theme to Holo Light, I downgraded the API level in the IDE to 19, but to no avail. I have both activity_main.xml and content_main.xml displaying grayed out CoordinatorLayout. So I cannot drag any components onto the layout in the IDE. What am I missing?!

Edit 3/10/2016: Adding detail on setup and the error messages...

This is my app's build.gradle file:

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

android {
    compileSdkVersion 23
    buildToolsVersion "23.0.2"

    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "com.udemycourse.notes"
        minSdkVersion 19
        targetSdkVersion 23
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
    }
    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
}

dependencies {
    compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
    testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.2.0'
    compile 'com.android.support:design:23.2.0'
}

Missing styles. Is the correct theme chosen for this layout?
Note: One or more layouts are missing the layout_width or layout_height attributes. These are required in most layouts.
The following classes could not be instantiated:
android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout
android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout
android.support.design.widget.FloatingActionButton
Exception displayed in the rendering window: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: You need to use a Theme.AppCompat theme (or descendant) with the design library. at android.support.design.widget.ThemeUtils.checkAppCompatTheme(ThemeUtils.java:34) at android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout.(AppBarLayout.java:145) at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(Unknown Source) at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(Unknown Source) at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Unknown Source) at org.jetbrains.android.uipreview.ViewLoader.createNewInstance(ViewLoader.java:458) at org.jetbrains.android.uipreview.ViewLoader.loadClass(ViewLoader.java:170) at org.jetbrains.android.uipreview.ViewLoader.loadView(ViewLoader.java:103) at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.LayoutlibCallbackImpl.loadView(LayoutlibCallbackImpl.java:168) at android.view.BridgeInflater.loadCustomView(BridgeInflater.java:247) at android.view.BridgeInflater.createViewFromTag(BridgeInflater.java:171) at android.view.LayoutInflater.createViewFromTag(LayoutInflater.java:704) at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate_Original(LayoutInflater.java:835) at android.view.LayoutInflater_Delegate.rInflate(LayoutInflater_Delegate.java:70) at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflate(LayoutInflater.java:811) at android.view.LayoutInflater.rInflateChildren(LayoutInflater.java:798) at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:515) at android.view.LayoutInflater.inflate(LayoutInflater.java:394) at com.android.layoutlib.bridge.impl.RenderSessionImpl.inflate(RenderSessionImpl.java:223) at com.android.layoutlib.bridge.Bridge.createSession(Bridge.java:426) at com.android.ide.common.rendering.LayoutLibrary.createSession(LayoutLibrary.java:350) at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask$2.compute(RenderTask.java:510) at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask$2.compute(RenderTask.java:498) at com.intellij.openapi.application.impl.ApplicationImpl.runReadAction(ApplicationImpl.java:888) at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask.createRenderSession(RenderTask.java:498) at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask.access$600(RenderTask.java:72) at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask$3.call(RenderTask.java:610) at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask$3.call(RenderTask.java:607) at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderService.runRenderAction(RenderService.java:362) at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask.render(RenderTask.java:607) at com.android.tools.idea.rendering.RenderTask.render(RenderTask.java:629) at com.intellij.android.designer.designSurface.AndroidDesignerEditorPanel$6.run(AndroidDesignerEditorPanel.java:480) at com.intellij.util.ui.update.MergingUpdateQueue.execute(MergingUpdateQueue.java:320) at com.intellij.util.ui.update.MergingUpdateQueue.execute(MergingUpdateQueue.java:310) at com.intellij.util.ui.update.MergingUpdateQueue$2.run(MergingUpdateQueue.java:254) at com.intellij.util.ui.update.MergingUpdateQueue.flush(MergingUpdateQueue.java:269) at com.intellij.util.ui.update.MergingUpdateQueue.flush(MergingUpdateQueue.java:227) at com.intellij.util.ui.update.MergingUpdateQueue.run(MergingUpdateQueue.java:217) at com.intellij.util.concurrency.QueueProcessor.runSafely(QueueProcessor.java:238) at com.intellij.util.Alarm$Request$1.run(Alarm.java:351) at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Unknown Source) at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source) at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

Update messed up Android Studio environment

1 Answers