I find the templates so buggy and too often they do not retain the settings I put in after spending quite a bit of time configuring the styles.

I am tempted just to set up one doc as the "model" doc and have people use that as the "template." In other words, just copy it locally and fill in their text accordingly.

Good or bad idea?

TIA

It is impossible to not use a template with Word. Even if you were to copy a document and try to use that as a 'template' (bad), even that document would employ the template it is based on...

If you're having trouble with templates not retaining settings, that suggests you haven't mastered editing them instead of just the documents based on them. Templates do not ordinarily lose their settings.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

The templates distributed from Office.com are of little use in producing work. They are best used as starting points or idea generators.

Yes, you want to create and use your own custom templates.
Templates in Microsoft Word

When you have what you want, you save it as a template. You put the template where you and others can access it. That is ordinarily in a Workgroup Templates folder.

See File New Variations in the Versions of Word to see ideas on how to access this template.