any other suggestions (I assume someone does module dev...) ? I am just a bit confused...

I've made a few modules, but I'm not an official developer, so take my advice for what it's worth. As far as using templates for your administration script, that's entirely up to you. You can use them, and in fact I have for most of the modules I've done, though most I've seen do not.

Whatever is easiest for you to do is probably what you'll want to go with. One thing to consider when using the echo statement is that it will output anything you've got in quotes (or in some cases, depending on how your using your variables, without quotes) at that spot in the code. If your not getting parse errors I'd go through and double check any variable that's supposed to output information, make sure they are exactly the same any place you use them. If you have a typo or used a different case with your echo statement, your trying to output an empty variable.

I'd check that first, if you need any more help let me know. I'll check this forum, also feel free to send me an email.