On the subject of taking fine control of layout in the template (and also potentially a way of achieving the desired result in your list/form requirement earlier discussed), some useul info is to be found in this thread:
https://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=156815
Particularly:
"Creating your own layout within the templating system as Don said works like this:
<formtemplate id="myform">
some html stuff ...<br><br><br>
<formwidget id="mywidget1" size="20" ...>
...
</formtemplate>
As soon as the contents of the formtemplate tag are not empty it will use those to render the form instead of rendering it automatically."
