I'm just getting used to my new Longarm. Took me a long time of searching online just to figure out how to thread the darn thing or adjust the tension. Once I got that all nailed down, I just do all over stippling at the moment. I figure that I need to crawl before I can run. Following drawn lines is so much harder that just free-hand wiggling all over the top of the quilt.
If you do want to practice some of your template skills, here's my suggestion. Find your local Project Linus group and pick up a few of their quilt kits. I picked up two of them a few weeks ago at our local quilt show. Had the two kits completely assembled in about 2 hours. Gave me some good practice on the longarm too. In the end, I am able to return two completed quilts to Project Linus at no cost to me other than the thread, and I gained lots of valuable longarm quilting practice.