I find it quite odd how you absolutely must select a template the first time you start SketchUp on a computer, even if you are launching SketchUp by opening an existing model. When you install SketchUp on someone else’s computer to show them model you simply can’t open it without selecting a default template. For someone who has never used SketchUp before that question is completely nonsensical, especially as it doesn’t apply to the model we are trying to open.
Would it be possible to simply omit asking for default template when starting SketchUp with an existing model?
Even when you are starting a new project this question can be very confusing to new users. Before you have actually started using SketchUp it’s difficult to understand what things are affected by a template and what templates are really for. This is especially true for users who aren’t native English speakers (or native speakers of any language SU is translated into). The first time you start up SketchUp simply to try it out you probably don’t even know if you are going to do architecture, urban planning or 3d printing, you just want to see what the program is like and what buttons there are to press.
I suggest it should be possible to start SketchUp from the launch screen without having selected a template but that SketchUp should automatically fall back to some default default template that is as neutral as possible. However, until actively selecting a default template SketchUp could continue to ask the this question on each startup to give all users a chance to easily set their own preferred default template.