If we want to achieve a static website with templates, we can change our basic template and have a tool such as DreamWeaver manage rewriting every page that used that template. Then, we can upload all the modified pages to the site. Perhaps, the difference there would not be much. Let's say that you were going to have a special sale that would last for three days. You need your site to appear three days prior to the sale and revert at the end. Well, doing it as a template-based site will involve a lot of work. On the other hand, if you skin the site, it could be much simpler.
We have design-time templates and run-time templates. Skinning a site involves server-side templates. This allows us to write dynamic applications and move the application to another customer site. Imagine that each time we build another customer site, we have to change all the templates. Then imagine that we change some basic function shared by an application that involves many customers. All...