Thanks everyone - At least I know I'm not alone in being frustrated with this! It looks like our new marketing person has agreed that an actual template is needed, she asked for my help creating it since she said it was obvious I knew more about Word. And some higher management people have agreed to do a training session for those report writers who don't fully understand how templates and style definitions are used. At least if more people understand these concepts, overall time & effort will be saved, even if not everyone gets a handle on it.
Thanks again!