[snowwrestler]

This is exactly what Dreamweaver templates do. You define the template files with editable areas, then you create individual pages based on the template files. When you change a template, Dreamweaver regenerates all the page files to reflect the change. It's all done in HTML with no weird compilers or parsers needed. SFTP the files into your public webroot and you're done.

This was one of the original "static site generators". And it's still used today, for example by the Smithsonian for some of their museum sites.