It would be great if you could create advanced templates for products, categories and so on.
So that in the admin area you could change every single template (show/hide filter, show/hide email friend, paging set to 12, 3 columns in every line and so on).
That way you could really create advanced template.
Create it in the same way as you do with payment methods. One UserControl in the backend and one UserControl in the front end.