In theory, yes. You should be able to select  any template and have that
template work at any level  of a site  collection. Having said that,
there are a few that don't work as root templates  in a new site
collection, so I'd be curious as to what broke on your root site when
you turned on the publishing  features.

You should be able to activate Publishing Infrastructure at the Site
Collection level  without activating Publishing in the root site.

I, too, would be most interested in what broke.

BTW, some site templates  only work well as root sites even though they
are available for sub sites.

Likewise, as Bill said, some only work as sub sites even though they are
available as root sites.

The display can be modified in an XML file.

I do not remember the file name at the moment and do not have access to
a 12 hive to check for it.

I just tried to re-create the error when I was mixing templates  but could not,
however I don't remember *exactly* what sequence I originally followed. I know
the TLS was a team/collaberation site  for which MicroSoft modified the master
pager. I think it was just to put our "branding" across the top but am not
sure. Next, (I think)I built several levels  deep using team/collaberation
templates but don't know if it was the modified one or not. Next, I tried to
build a pub site, SP would not let me saying I had to activate features. So, I
activated pub coll features. Then I went to top level  site, saw the
"navagation" link, went to it and got some error message about master page out
of synch (my word not SP's). Then I turned off pub features, and top-level
site reverted.

Today I tried to repeat the above on the same site from the same starting
point, it seemed to work fine.