Website Template
Choose a design you like for your template. Don't be overly concerned about colors and typestyles, as those can usually be changed.
Even though Flash sites are attractive, they are not SEO friendly, so I would advise staying away from them. You could add a bit of Flash to dress things up if you like.
Fierce Websites is using a free template from Free CSS Templates called "Las Vegas Too". As you can see, many small changes such as colors and fonts can make the template look completely different.
I would definitely recommend using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to make changes easily and quickly. Let's say you decide the font is a bit too small. With CSS you can change the font size without going through all your pages and changing it. For an excellent in depth tutorial on CSS, visit W3Schools
Sites offering free Website Templates...
Usually when you use a free template, you will need to provide a link back to the site where you downloaded it. This is only fair, as they worked to make the template and deserve the credit. Sometimes you are allowed to pay for the right to remove the copyright.