In SSRS 2005, you were able to update the Report.rdl file in this location C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\ProjectItems\ReportProject to have a "template" where new reports using the Report Wizard would have a formatted header and footer. I have attempted to migrate this to SSRS 2008R2 without success. I have opened the old report in VS2008 and made sure it gets upgraded, copied it back to the appropriate location but the Wizard doesn't seem to use the Report.rdl anymore. Is this the behaviour of 2008R2 now or have i missed something?

can you try and see if this works? http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/yanivy/archive/2010/08/03/create-custom-templates-and-styles-for-ssrs-2008.aspx