phd dissertation in latex: templates versus scratch

I am still getting my feet wet with LaTeX (starting to read 'LaTeX for complete novices'). I have decided to use LaTeX for writing my dissertation. As I begin I was wondering if it would be better to start from scratch (and follow a book like 'Using LaTeX to write a dissertation') or to use a template.

And if a template is used, would it be better (and easy?) to go with a beautiful template like classicthesis and modify it for my university requirements, or a fellow phd student from my university who has produced a template?

I am asking some of these because I thought maybe going from scratch might be easier for a novice since I can't understand all that code in a template, and by starting from scratch with a guide book might help me in learning instead of trying to debug a given template.

Thoughts?