I still make my icons as if they were going to be templates, but then don't use them as such.
Back in the day, Jorg was releasing layered psd files with many possible weapon and armor choices, each layer in grey tones so you could pick your own color...those were the days. I released my first dwarf (or two) in the same format. And virtually no one used them...though TwilightKing shrunk them down to make halfling versions, which no one used. I guess I'm not really benig fair, though, as very few icons have been used at all because there aren't any mods out there... Maybe on people's home computers, on all of those mods-in-progress, they're using lots and lots of the templated icons.
I just like doing the originals as layered files so that if later, I am making a mod which wants an orc with a spear instead of a sword, it's just turn off one layer and add another.
