No need to break a working feature to create a hack. A duplication is a duplication. It must be the same.
Maybe a suggestion, adding another “type of template”, which behaves more like “forms”, where the template has specific determinated areas for input/text/etc and the display is always evaluated against the current state of the template.
Maybe call it “live templates”. Basically how html web templates work.
I say create a new “type of template”, because this is such a different functionality, that should be separate to make it easily identifiable and explained to the users:
Templates → as it is created is how it stays
Live Templates → always generated according to the current “template” assigned
In terms of software, I am thinking the way Crystal Reports works. Anyway, just an idea… this is a very tricky issue