Repetitive wordpress PHP styling
No, this can be written a lot easier.  There is no need to create variables when you are not going to vary the value.  It actually only makes things harder to read.  Assuming you are using PHP 5.3+ consider this:

// It is odd that you aren't using $vars in your method.
// I'll ignore that for now.
function wellies_less_vars( $vars, $handle ) {

    //Necessary for UpTheme Framework
    // This is not nice, but I'll ignore that too. 
    global $up_options;

    //Set Less Mixins to Variables above
    // Grab Theme option and check if it's set and use that, otherwise use a
    // default value.
    // Now there is beauty in the alignment IMO.
    return array(
        'linkColor'          =&gt; $up_options-&gt;linkcolor            ?: '#08c',
        'linkColorHover'     =&gt; $up_options-&gt;linkcolorhover       ?: '#03c',
        'networkNavBarStart' =&gt; $up_options-&gt;networknavstartcolor ?: '#333',
        'networkNavBarEnd'   =&gt; $up_options-&gt;networknavendcolor   ?: '#222',
        'siteNavBarStart'    =&gt; $up_options-&gt;sitenavstartcolor    ?: '#333',
        'siteNavBarEnd'      =&gt; $up_options-&gt;sitenavendcolor      ?: '#222');
}


There is a small difference in functionality, but a large difference in readability.  The ?: uses the value on the left if it evaluates to true (generally a set variable except false), or the value on the right if it is not.