You mention that your DW template is ok for the main, but you are having trouble with the content.dwt. You mentioned that you are not able to edit the template to addin the editable regions. I think that this is most likely why you are having problems creating a site based on these template files. If you are not able to edit the file to get your regions setup correctly the file might not be a properly crafted template file. You should always be able to edit the regions of a template file when working on it directly. The only time that I know when you are not able to edit the regions is when you are working on a page that is derived by the template.
If you have any further trouble with this please post back with your Templates directory so we can check on the templates that you are using to see if this is the problem.