Thanks SO much for your response, Richard.
Yes, indeed, Course Formats are what I had in mind. I kept searching for "course home page" and "course templates", etc. without finding anything...
We have been using the tabbed Onetopic format - I'd love to figure out how to combine that with the Board (Grid and Blocks) format I just saw under Course Formats.
Your other suggestion re. Snippets is also excellent. Providing simple forms for re-using and styling snippets would go a long way towards simplifying course page creation.
You've given me two great paths to follow. I'm very grateful!