2009/1/13 Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org:
The template equivalent to refactoring is the introduction of meta-templates, such as {{infobox}}.
The other useful thing that can be done with templates is to standardise the field names in them as much as possible per wiki.
The reason? To enhance machine readability of data in them. People are SERIOUSLY INTERESTED in this.
The user interface for templates is not entirely horrible - {{templatename|field1=value|field2=value}} etc. As long as that stays reasonably assumable, the plumbing behind it can be as esoteric as is needed - no-one really cares as long as it works reliably.
- d.