Based on what I can find, it seems that I can actually make those template changes part of my theme by including them in a "templates" directories such as "templates/<modulename>/" and "templates/<modulename>/blocks/" within my theme. Is that correct?
If I do this and want to now distribute my theme, do I have have to tell people to go through the cloning process, or can they then simply install the theme as they would any other theme and it'll work "out-of-the-box"
Lastly, is there any tutorial or document out there that talks about templates? I've found a lot of stuff about themes and the only stuff I can find on templates talk about cloning them and making them active.