Handlebars Helpers vs String Utilities

The Handlebars client-side template system let's the developer register new template helpers. In effect, this extends the template syntax, adding to the short list of available helpers. The decision to include as few helpers as possible in the package was an intentional one - there's no sense including a lot of stuff that nobody uses. Especially when it's easy enough to make your own using registerHelper(). For this reason, only the bare essentials such as if and each are available out of the box. But is there an alternative approach to formatting your template data?