Yes, I often do that. I define one template with conditional rendering
at appropriate places depending on container's mode, and then in Init
event I assign this to other templates (like
FormView1.InsertItemTemplate = FormView1.EditItemTemplate).
Same goes for DataSource controls' update/insert parameter collections
(if those are reasonably similar), with difference being adjusted in
Init event.
However make sure doing this doesn't take away the feeling of multiple
instances of this template, as they can and will exist. Once I ruined
whole night in trying to debug a mysterious 'state loss' at insert
event, only to realize that there would be (and should be) new
instance of this template in update mode after insert