Royalty-free photos, Word, templates all no doubt take away from professional designers because there are so many people out there who can't really tell the difference, so they really think they are getting a deal. Everybody thinks they are a graphic designer now that they have all those templates and other graphics features built in to Word. One local printing place actually gives away a little booklet educating people about what is graphic design and why Word isn't graphic design and why it matters. Anybody with Front Page thinks that makes them a web designer, too.
Nevertheless I think that templates serve an important buisiness purpose. Why hire a bunch of programmers and web designers to build a fancy message board when you could use phorum or some other instead. Templates can be a viable option and a good business decision. Why re-invent the wheel for something somebody has already done? A template is just a tool, so I don't think there is anything wrong with making them for a living. I don't think that they can adequately replace a custom site done by a real designer in all cases, but in some cases they probably can. Not everybody thinks they need a fancy web site, so why should they pay for one?
So, my opinion is that working making templates isn't really a bad thing. I serves a need. Plus it probably is a great learning experience, too. I would think that making good templates would be a real skill.
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