This behavior does not make any sense and together with the fact that page templates are applied lazily creates strange behaviors such as the one described next:

If an administrator creates a page (on the public pages of a site) using Page Templates, the page appears visibly for a guest user to click on. However, upon clicking on the page - the guest user will receive a prompt to log in (to see content on a public page?) and the page will disappear. From an end user perspective, this is strange behavior.

Steps to reproduce
1. Login as admin
2. In the default site public pages -> go to Control Panel -> Site Pages
3. Add a page and use a preset Page Template
4. Refresh a different browser as a guest user - note that the guest user can see the page.
5. Click on the page you created as a guest user
6. Observe the page disappear.

See this screencap for video of this behavior - http://www.screenr.com/tfos