Yes for the first question. Google of all companies didn't even get it right with Gemma for a while until recently. For some reason it doesn't seem like people can actually get these templates right.

Yes, I was fixing issues piecemeal until I found the froggeric template, I've had to fix I think one issues with that one but it's better.

Yes yes, oh god yes. They also spread FUD in the form of terrible recommended sampler settings.

If you're using llamacpp, turn on top-n-sigma with sigma of 1, turn off top-p/top-k. You'll thank me later.