'ello! That's okay - the way I figure it, you can't use what you don't have, but you can always disregard what you don't need... As such, more is more.

I'm sorry, I don't quite follow you when you refer to the Heirachy->Template Mode, so please excuse me if this is a dumb-ass response.

I'd kinda forgotten about that, that once templated it's not nearly as quick to untemplate an object, on account of having to use the outliner or hypergraph to select the templated objects.

I just use layers to do what I think you're asking about.
When you open the channel box, you get a second window at the bottom with a radio-button to select either Display or Render. Display being the default. (use the third icon from the left at the top of the channel box if you dont have two windows in the channel box side-bar)

a)Click on the icon with the square and the yellow thing.
b)Double click on the newly created text, "layer1"
c)Call it whatever takes your fancy e.g TemplateLayer
d)Select all the objects that you'd like to be able to template/untemplate at the same time e.g the whole rig, or the model's skin
e)Hold the right mouse button over the TemplateLayer text in the layer editor and choose Add Selected Objects.
f)Try clicking on the box with the V in it (visibility) or the blank box next to it to cycle through T, R and blank (Template, Reference, nothing)


I use this particularly for image planes, since it's a nice easy way to turn on/off front/back or top/bottom or left/right reference pics. It also makes selecting joints inside a skinned model a hell of a lot easier.

In a pic: