Nice site ghubbell
very clean and sharp.
Yes the reason for templates is to allow for customization of the display without having to worry about the back end. I'm reworking IIP 5.0 to use templates with a control panel setup. The text has already been moved to a seperate language file specificly for the pals. I have most all of the code moved to a main include file, sort of like how .threads is set up.
Your IIP loaded fairly fast, it seemed, considering you have over 95,000 posts. What are your load times according to the debug info? Just currious.
Did the removal of the pal boxes that are not being used help speed things up?