For me, I have too many different templates to want to pick one to always be used, so I wonder if instead a new note could display something like the “No file” view that appears when no file is open, followed by a list of clickable template actions.
(Ideally, this would be something plugins could hook into, so that you aren’t locked into one specific templating implementation. That is, supply an event for fetching template actions, so that plugins could respond to the event by passing a list of names and callbacks, or something of that sort.)
(See also my notes on an idea for a Stationery plugin.)