mdomer,
if all you do is buy a template, it could take you a while to understand fully what is going on and why. But, if you do it the old fashioned way, you should be prepared to build a new office template every year or so, for a few years at least. You will learn so much each year that the old template will hold you back otherwise.
Now, your best bet is to buy both template and training, so you can get up to speed quickly and actually make use of the template immediately and accelerate your process of tweaking the template over time, because even with solid training up front you will be learning, new versions will have new features, and your staff will just not be immediately ready to go whole hog. But I think it's pretty reasonable to be at a place in two years that took most of us 5 or 6 or more years to get to the hard way. That's worth a fair chunk of change to an office that has a long view on these things.

I've also been using Revit for about six months as a trainee. I have built our own template (multiple attempts) but I know exactly what makes it tick, it's limitations, and advantages. I doubt I would know as much as I do now if we had purchased a template, training or not. The experience I have gained in doing things this way has been invaluable.

If you have the time (and patience), I would recommend building an original template from the ground up. Not only will it contain your company's standards you will gain invaluable knowledge on the subject. I have used a couple of paid for templates and find that they require so much modification and standardization that you may as well make your own.

Regardless of which option you go for, good luck!

Thank you for your replies.
Before posting, I had built our template as a first go-around. I have setup my project browser, materials, pipe systems/types, titleblock and some filters.
I'm not sure what else I'm lacking aside from additional filters, and some shared parameters. Welcome to the Great Unknown, right?

Pretty much, there is a great thread here somewhere regarding templates. You'll find it by doing a simple search.

But yes, your office environment is truly unique in how you do things. So the best template is one you make yourself, regardless of how many reiterations you have.

And here it is

Take your time (ain't gonna happen in a single day) to read through and try to understand it all and precisely why things are listed in the order they are.