It's a mystic! We have absolutely same problem with template!
Even OS version of the guest VM is a same - W2k3 Std.
About one week deploy from it works fine, but today we have same 00000 owner:
Aug 15 12:11:55 esx09 vmkernel: 2:03:29:55.973 cpu4:1041)FS3: 130: <START (Template) W2K3STR2SP2ENG.vmdk>
Aug 15 12:11:55 esx09 vmkernel: 2:03:29:55.973 cpu4:1041)Lock [type 10c00001 offset 43878400 v 5283, hb offset 3232256
Aug 15 12:11:55 esx09 vmkernel: gen 9, mode 0, owner 00000000-00000000-0000-000000000000 mtime 184469]
Aug 15 12:11:55 esx09 vmkernel: 2:03:29:55.973 cpu4:1041)Addr <4, 117, 5>, gen 4827, links 1, type reg, flags 0x0, uid 0, gid 0, mode 100600
Aug 15 12:11:55 esx09 vmkernel: 2:03:29:55.973 cpu4:1041)len 418, nb 1 tbz 0, zla 2, bs 65536
Aug 15 12:11:55 esx09 vmkernel: 2:03:29:55.973 cpu4:1041)FS3: 132: <END (Template) W2K3STR2SP2ENG.vmdk>
ESX3.5Update2 build 110181
Virtual Center2.5 build 104215
My opinion: Last few months quality of Vmware products growing down. Looks like they programmers works under heavy time press and releasing unstable versions of the products.