It was appropriate to answer about the core team size not being a definitive measure, but knowing the volume of external contribution is necessary to support that point. Looking at git logs across all Qubes-owned repos over the last year, external contributors and contributions are few and cover a tiny fraction of the codebase.
I’m not sure why you’d think anyone was talking about templates, except that it’s the bit you provide professional services on.
I wonder how I can tell you haven’t tried.