[Klaus Linke]

So we're stuck training our users to remember to check
for any occurances of Normal in their documents and to
restyle them as whatever style they choose for their
body text.

If you define "Normal" as "Courier New, red" or something equally obnoxious,
they don't have to check: they see.
The restyling issue isn't solved that way, though, which brings us to...

Can't there be a better option? Maybe some "best practice"
for a template and set of styles that eases the burden?

There are many other opinions... My "best practice" suggestion is to stick
with "Normal" as the default (body text) style.

Styles are supposed to make things easy for you. When you stick with the
same default text style (and heading styles ...), things are pretty simple.
You don't have to remember what style is the default for the given document,
or worry about style issues when pasting text between documents.

When you use your own template styles, or company styles, you often end up
spending a lot of your time on reformatting.

There is an option in Word that allegedly brings you the best of both ways:
"Alias style names". You could rename the built-in style (Normal). In Word
2007, there is even an option to hide the built-in name from the user and
only show your alias name.
It might do what you want to do. IMO though, styles like "Normal;
SmithBrown_BT; bt" hurt the eye, and if you hide the "real" name(s), users
will likely be confused in many situations ("What is style »xy« for, in this
document"?, "Why do »Heading 1« paras change into some other style when I
paste into this document?" ...).

Regards,
Klaus