When you make conditional gift templates, the fields to filter through are text boxes. This means you have to be very sure you're spelling things correctly, and if you change the name of the record, you have to remember to also change it in the conditional template. A lookup field shows you the options as they are spelled and creates a permanent link where changing the name of the record will not break it.

This issue is exacerbated by the requirement to choose a default letter on conditional gift templates. If there were no default letter, you could just run the list through and count on things not properly hit in the logic just being left out of the letters. Instead, they get the default letter and it obscures that they weren't properly triggered.