theming issues

Hi,
this is working great most of the time but I've come up against a couple of things in themeing the content that I thought I would ask about:

1. In trying to test things I have a file called "enews.tpl.php" in my sites/all/themes/mytheme folder and it is overriding the tpl file in the module folder, but when I try to print different drupal variables the output to the browser either results in a white screen or the print_r line is ignored.

2. Changing css rules were generally accepted with a browser refresh, but adding sections to the tpl file required re-saving the node (this may be the solution to item 1, yes?) in order for the test email to reflect the template change.

I'm using the admin toolbar and was flushing all caches after each edit but it didn't affect anything - only resaving the node worked. Is this a product of the module design or is there maybe something weird with my setup? I'm using a subtheme of fusion/aquia_prosper.

Thanks,
David