Unfortunately, as Conquer notes, Logic is designed to "think' for you - - and as one might predict this "thinking" makes certain simple operations more difficult.
First, I'd suggest reading pages 632-633 of the manual where the difference between "opening" and "importing" a MIDI file is described.
When you open a MIDI file, all the data concerning meter and tempo are retained.
When you import a MIDI file data concerning meter and tempo are lost.
In the unlikely event that you don't care about retaining meter and tempo data, the simplest thing is to drag the MIDI file into the Arrange page of your template. If this method gave you the option of retaining meter and tempo data, it would accomplish just what we'd all like - - a simple way of moving a MIDI file into a Logic template... I suggest writing to Apple with this suggestion. You can do this by going to the feedback page of the Apple website:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/logicpro.html
If you want to retain meter and tempo data then you can open the MIDI file while holding the option key down.
This eliminates the loading of the EXS instruments Logic has decided are appropriate for your MIDI file.
However, when you go to the mixr page, you discover that you cannot create "software instrument" Channel Strips because they are grayed-out on the channel strip menu.
To fix this, you need to import the Mixer layer of the Logic template you've created for VE. You do this by looking under the "import Environment" selection in the Options menu of the current environment.
You then import the Mixer level of the Environment of your Logic VE template. (This template should have a 16 channel MIDI instrument wired to Audio Instrument 1.)
This will give you two mixer levels in the environment - - and the imported one will lack some important elements such as Output 1-2, Master, Click and PreListen.
To move these to new Mixer page select them all, hold down the option key and switch to new Mixer page. They will move to the new mixer page. Return to the now empty original Mixer page and use the "delete layer" command available under the flip menu on the upper left corner of the window.
Then you can reassign the tracks in the arrange page to the appropriate channels. (e.g VE 1 1, VE 1-2, etc.) However, the assignment menu does look a litle funky, since, in my experience, there are two VE 1-1s, VE1-2s etc.
The advantage of using VE is, as Conquer points out, you can have a pre-existing VE Template with all your instruments loaded in it and save it. Thus if you were working with a VE Standalone as the playback device for Finale or Sibelius and you save it, you can, after instantiating VE as a software instrument in Logic, open it and it will have all your settings.
There are other alternatives - - you can open the Logic for VE Template you've made and then - - without closing the template - - open the MIDI file. This will result in a dialog box asking if you want a new Environment or to copy the Environment of the file that is already open. If you do this you will get a result similar to what I've described above, but it will be a little weird in certain ways - - which you can clean up to a greater or lesser extent.
If only things were more simple: Ars Longa, Vita Brevis, I guess.
In the final analysis, at the present time, the most direct way to get a MIDI file into Logic with all its data intact, is simply to "open" it (not import it!) and then get rid of all the extraneous instruments that Logic's "brain" has decided would be what the user really wants. All the other methods described above involve more complex procedures and give somewhat baroque (although functional) results. The easiest way to get rid of the virtual instruments, EQ and whatnot that Logic has decided you want (down deep, of course) is to use the "Reset Channel Strip" command for the channels that have EXS + EQ + who knows what in them. This command clears everything out. The only thing is that its hard to get it to work - - on my computer, at least, to access this menu, you need to use the Inspector view, then click and hold on the top panel of the channel strip.
Do write to Apple at the webpage given above.
