Thanks so much for this reply, Bree! I misspoke: You are right, of course: sites can be imported into templates. The issue is that we are making templates with detailed activated plugins and widget settings, and those don’t carry over with the WP export/import tool.
If you are able to request a way for us to change which site is a template site, we would appreciate it! We’ve also thought that one way to get this functionality might be to combine setting the default templates with the new template chooser (that Boone is creating), so that all templates are managed in the same place. Just one idea!