I think one problem is the web interfaces to these groups is, um,
shall we say, less than intuitive.
The one on the Microsoft site I've just looked at
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/FlyoutOverview.mspx#12
(there are probably several of them) lists Templates as an Office
application. Surpisingly people ask questions about templates but
don't mention the application they are using!
From the list of applications on the left-hand side, you select, say,
Outlook, and you get what you would expect to be a list of groups for
Outlook but actually still shows the whole list of Office newsgroups.
I've just found another interface to the newsgroups
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/desktoppt/visio.mspx
(called TechNet for some reason) and apparently the 3 most active
Visio newsgroups are
Visio Troubleshooting
Visio CreateShapes
Visio Installation
but in real life these are the 3 quietest groups. Actually, I think
these 3 are officially dead!