That's why to start simple, to see if we need to. Something to help the newbies and not annoy the experienced editors.
Speaking as a semi-experienced editor, I wouldn't mind the odd template. Typing is boring. Let the machine do it.
Incidentally, there was a proposal somewhere to change the nomenclature from "references" and "external links" to "sources" and "further reading". I've seen this implemented once or twice and it seems to work a lot better, and remove all the confusion over when to use URLs, swaps academic naming conventions ("references") for more understood "sources", etc. If a template is being created, it's probably a good opportunity to think about making a decision on that, and implementing it there.
Steve