Using New Outlook on Windows for personal email, calendar, and contact management
Found my answer finally - connected experiences have to be enabled. Turn on optional connected experiences is enabled in your setting. To do so, go to Settings or Gear icon-->General-->Privacy Settings-->make sure that Turn on Optional connected experiences is enabled.
My "View Templates" button and disappeared templates are now back and available.
I actually had to toggle this off, then back on for my templates to return to the ribbon and start working again.