You don't always have to use Templates, in fact since I started in NOF in 1998 I haven't any more than a few. And I've completely redesigned those sites form the ground up and they look even better than before
They key is to get tools which complement NOF like EzRound, AllWebMenus, and extra stuff like CSS3 features such as shadows and other nice stuff ....investigate what's out there. Alot of excellent AJAX scripts to help as well!
Carl