There are 2 ways of creating a new project.
You can either do a File > New and select from the various templates.
Or, you can simply hit ctrl + N which will open up your "normal" template [normal.cwt]
Which method are you using? If the former, which template are you opening?
If it's the normal.cwt template, then I suspect it's been overwritten at some time and this is why you're seeing what you are.
If you simply open up [any] template, make the changes you want to see as the default and re-save it into the templates folder (save AS normal.cwt), this will now be your default.