[HELP] How to Edit vB4 Template for ibProArcade?

I'm new to ibProarcade so forgive my noobness. I recently installed ibProArcade v2.7.0+ on my vB4 Gold Patch Level 1 forum. I followed the instructions to the letter, but I'm still having problems. Let me start off by saying that the games work, the scores record, and I get no error messages.

My main goal has been trying to edit the default template. Removing some elements, rearranging them, styling them to my liking, etc. What I don't understand, is I can delete the "ARCADE_vB4" template entirely, and it does not affect the functionality of my arcade...at all. This leads me to believe I'm somehow using the wrong version (?). When I edit the "ARCADE" template though, I see changes on my site. I'd greatly appreciate it if someone could clear this up for me. Coincidentally, I can't use {vb:raw var} inside the "ARCADE" template without getting this error:

The following error occurred when attempting to evaluate this template:

The conditional on line 23 appears to be missing its beginning tag (<if>). This may cause unexpected behavior.

This is likely caused by a malformed conditional statement. It is highly recommended that you fix this error before continuing, but you may continue as-is if you wish.

which has made it impossible for me to pass variables inside the "ARCADE" template. If this has been covered in another post, I apologize; I did a search and nothing relevant came up. Thanks for reading.