content zone inheritance

I've seen this done before where you create a single page with a basic layout and just content, no header, footer, etc. just content. Then you place a page placeholder on the template and you can then specify which page and template you want it to display by default. See if that works for you.

Another option might be to create a webpart and just place that webpart on the different templates you need.

Using a page placeholder disables the ability to edit a webpart on the inheriting page in Page View. If I change it in the design view or from Edit Page on the live page, the change alters the original master template. I tried link image, editable image, and editable text webparts, the result was always the same. Having different templates with different webparts that are not all pointing to some master webpart makes it very difficult to change one of these button defaults site wide. For the end user it would be right, but I am trying to design this with clean content management in mind. Having both a default and custom version of these buttons exist on the page, and writing some logic that would remove the default if the custom had something selected for it might be some sort of solution. I will continue to think on it, and post back here if I figure out anything. Thanks Brenden. I see you are now "Kentico MVP". I don't know what all that entails, but you certainly deserve it! Congratulations.

Not sure if this would be a viable option for you or not Kyle, but you could also set the visibility through macros of the items, so in the master you can have your condition as {%cmscontext.currentdocument.nodealias|(notequals)Logon|(identity)GlobalAdministrator%}

Otherwise, you may be able to use Variants of the webparts. Haven't done too much with that, but maybe one of those could be an option.

Thank you for your response Joshua. I will keep this in mind while seeking out the best solution possible.

I did end up developing a webpart to serve this functionality. Thank you both for your responses.