Web-dev/design template implementation and creation?

I've been trying out loads of different way to make the most effecient "template" for a site. The site consists of 'Sections', 'Menus' and 'SubMenus'. So to the question; what would be the most efficient and "slick" way of making a "template" for it? I've tried including headers and footers (Making all "head" items in the "header.php" and closing everything in the "footer.php"). I've tried using 开发者_JAVA百科Case/Switches and includes - But all this gets very inefficient when you have a lot of redirects and pages. So I've been pondering over other sites go about in doing this..

What would you suggest that I start looking into?

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Why not use a CMS system like Drupal or Joomla. Then you can take an existing template and build off of it. Drupal uses PHP Templating engine. http://drupal.org/node/11810