Does anyone know how to create your own templates? I'm not sure where to even begin looking in Finale 2004. The Help section was not helpful either.

Start by knowing which instruments you'd like to use. You can add staves in Finale with the staff tool (I think that's what it's called). If you want to customize certain things globally, much of that happens in the Staff Atributes window. So you might tell your snare staff to place all articulations on the stem side of the note, or you could assign/create percussion mapping here, as well as the staff naming and abbreviations, default clefts, etc. Once you've added all the staves you plan to use, you might want to spend some time specifying the page layout settings.

I always found it most helpful to do this, then start writing. Once I begin writing, I'd often make adjustments to the layout, mapping, font size, etc. By the time I'm done with a project, it'll be closer to my intent than when I started. So rather than repeating this cycle on my next project, I'll just copy this score, then use it as a template for my next project. That way you won't have to recreate all those settings again.