Well you can also try Fireworks. It's the Adobe application for exactly creating the templates you want. But if you are already familiar with Photoshop you can try that, yeah.
If you want help with photoshop tutorials then pm me as I dont think I can post threads. But you can do all sorts. In CS5 which I am a proud owner you can import 3d objects. use the puppet tool more effeciently. its pretty awesome and after 4 years of using photoshop I am still learning. oh sorry, getting carried away yeah pm or if i am allowed I will drop some good starting tutorials in here.
What doubts you have in your mind. Photoshop is so far the best software for creating templates , for the reason it is user friendly and you can find thousands of VDO tutorials on youtube to learn by yourself.
This is not acurate. Photoshop does do Vector they are called shapes. Shapes are made from a path and points which can be modified at any time. It's not quite as powerful as say illustrator but it gets the job done. Best of all shapes can benefit from the fx in photoshop.