> You then buy this template and shoehorn your own content, and hopefully goals into a template without ever thinking about what your site should look or work like.

Templates work fine if you simply reverse the order here: think carefully about how you want the site to look and work, then look to see if there is a template that is reasonably close. If there is, it's a huge savings in cost and time--even if you have to alter the template a bit. Graphic design and front-end coding are expensive by the hour.