Posting here to bring this topic back to life. Any new development on this functionality?
For example:
Creating a feature class for street signs based on MUTCD standard, which totals about 350 signs. This will be used in a web app with a pull down list for creating features (you can start typing a sign name to filter the list of available templates so you're not scrolling through hundreds of options).
Need to have one field with the MUTCD code and another the actual name of the sign. Sure, a domain will allow you to store the code and have the name display in a single field, but I need the values in two different fields. It will take a LONG time to manual edit the default value in that second field for 350 feature templates - not to mention the issue of data integrity with all that typing.
It would be nice to create an updateCursor or something to fly through these values which are already contained in a table.
Did you ever create a 'look up' table for the MUTCD codes? One column as the code (R7-2E) and the other has a description ("No Parking")? I could really use that right now!
Non-python related, I suppose one workaround is to symbolize your features by unique values, many fields. Then the feature template is created with both default values. The name of the template, however, is a combination of the two values. Hmm...