We've been using XSLT for templates in Trident, which is now dropped in favour of Dolphin 8. Although, XSLT is a nice technology we found that it creates a lot of constrains for developers that aren't proficient in this particular area. This is, for the most part, a bad thing.
AlexT will probably chime in to comment about D8 templates, but AFAIK they're not XSLT-based.
Dolphin 7.1 has the same template engine as 7.0, to keep the compatibility with previous versions. Dolphin 8 has the same template engine too but with some structural changes.
When will you migrate the syntax of your template engine to XSLT, as you had indicated?
AlexT will probably chime in to comment about D8 templates, but AFAIK they're not XSLT-based.
If Dolphin 8 will get rid XSLT, does the forum it will still use XSLT? (I do not even see this module in Dolphin 8).