Is there a benefit from an SEO perspective to building a site from the ground up or are the templates just as effective in getting traffic? I just wonder if the SE's look at them differently. Thanks.
Google does look at templates, but generally this won't effect most people. Building something from the ground up is an advantage, because you can maximize the code to content ratios and build an ideal site architecture, navigational system etc. Plus having something unique, not found anywhere else is more professional. But a template won't put you at a massive SEO disadvantage unless it's horribly coded.
If I'm doing something new, I'll often throw it up on a template first, and point some links at it. Get it aging and indexed in Google. Then when you are ready to work with it, you can either modify the template, or rebuild something new. Just keep the url structure as you will want it from the very start if you can.