Gasp! Tables! Run for the hills!
Which template controls featured products is determined by setting in the appearance section. Depending on what you set there, and what sizes your thumbnails are you can adjust the layout width, and number of columns.
Because of these controls, manually adjusting the template is going to be a bear. Not only that, the same template likely controls the category page. You had the right idea, creating a separate template just for featured products. Why it is not working is another matter. Care to share the code you are using?