we asked internal ppl if they have thoughts here.

See this related GEMS Session -- Testing Your UI

In your use case - what exactly are they approving? 

AFter talking to internal ppl - they stated - only YUI and GCC are supported and you need to pick one.

Nice response!

For those reading this and want to get up and running fast with editable templates - see this HELPX artilce -- Adobe Experience Manager Help | Creating an Adobe Experience Manager 6.4 website using Editable Templates

Arun is correct - this can be done - but this is a very uncommon use case - so you will not find examples in the Adobe docs and articles.

Furthermore - you can delete a component that is locked in the editable template from the template view (as opposed to within a page). See here: So in summary - components can be deleted from the page - if they are allowed to be used in the Responsive Grid and set via the policyComponents that are l...

An Author can only delete components that are set in the Responsive Grid and are allowed to be used via the policy - such as the Text component.However - an author cannot delete components on a page that are locked down in the editable template.  This is by design.To modify this, you need to open an...

Arun response provides the approach you need to remove these modes.