Recording this for posterity (IOW so in 2 years when I am trying to figure this out again, I'll run across my own help . . .)
In order to set the XY plane as the "Front" view in a template, if using the styles library, this is controlled in the first tab of Styles, under View Preferences. See attached.
This was poorly documented in Help, and the new online Wiki help definitely is NOT an improvement over previous help.