Thanks Magicstudios, Kyle, Welshy and the other kind people who pointed me in the right directions.  Here's the poop --

1.  Be sure everything in httpdocs has been deleted.

2.  Upload the html and css files into that folder.  Then upload the index folder into the httpdocs folder.  Core is good for uploading FTP.

3.  Then when you go to the internet, you should see whatever you uploaded.

4.  For editing templates, use NVU/Komposer or Dreamweaver.  Many of the other editor packages seem to lock out files which are not theirs.  But Komposer (which is the latest version of NVU) seems to be willing to load and edit almost anything. 

5.  I hadn't realized that about the other packages -- that they were set to only use their own files (apparently).  Microsoft Publisher 2003, WYSYWIG 5.0, XSitePro2, Weeble, and several other packages all rejected my templates or anything that had been made using a different program.

Hope this info is helpful for other newbies.

Cheers --

Wiz