[davidkatz]

Templates are tool. They can be used or abused. Used well, they can save you weeks of work.

There is a lot of convergence in website goals. Blogs aren't that different from each other, portfolios aren't that different from each other. Sure, you'll take on more constraints than building your own from scratch, but you also might be a lot faster, which often outweighs everything.

I've used templates to great effect many a time.