I did this at my previous company and what we did is setup the requirements and reserves within the templates but with no effort on them. The teams liked this approach, especially for the requirements. You just have to remember to update if there are any org changes that may impact the org res values that are used as they do not update. Reserves come with a similar caution since people come and go so may still be on the template but no longer with the company. 

You do not want any effort on the assignments so there is no issues with showing up in reports or in utilization views. 

We include some requirements on templates now too. On generic project templates just be sure to either make them 0 effort or keep them in a status is suppressing assignments for staffing, otherwise you will see these as requirements to fill.

We have some other templates that are very specific where we include the requirements with effort and duration. Our process is to create that work in a status where those requirements are suppressed for staffing (or hidden from RM’s). The PM must then review/update then release the schedule. 

We don’t use requirements, but we have a line in our templates for resource allocations to remind PMs that they need to allocate themselves and their teams to projects.

We’ve just started experimenting with templates for large complex projects with a significant number of staffing requirements options.  We did put the tasks in Hold Status which we’ve configured to suppress requirements.  There’s a setting in the Staffing Views for Resource Managers they need to select so they don’t see Suppressed Requirements.   Challenge for us has been how consistent is the staffing from project to project and is it easier to edit a template or just create for each new project from scratch.  We think the template approach will be beneficial overall.