Design a website from scratch vs templates etc...

Hi All,

I'm new to Webmaster, and to web design infact, so I apologies if this question is naive or has been asked many many times before. it would be good to have both biased and unbiased responses if possible.

So here goes....I've been learning to design web sites and web pages mostly from basics so far i.e. Coding and I'm really enjoying this form of web design as I come from a techy background and you can really get satisfaction from it. However I'm seeing time and time again formus and advertisements on Wordpress, Jamoola, "build a website with no experience".... adverts etc... I also read a book recently from a successful web designer who seems to use nothing other than Wordpress and swears by it.

So here's my questions on this topic:
Can your build responsive, beautiful and advanced websites without coding from scratch with these templates?
Should I bother learning to code if this is possible?
Is there a big advantage of designing your own website over using Wordpress?
If I build my own website from scratch can clients still edit basic content?
And what are the limitations to using Wordpress?

Thanks guys for any advice on this topic. It would be good to hear from web designers who have done both and had success with both.