>>>Empty project with nothing in it was introduced in MVC 4 and VS 2012. Prior to that empty project did have some stuff in it.
>>
>>So it wasn't 'empty' :-}
>>I tend to look at the other templates to see how they are set up and then start from scratch so that I don't end up with un-needed 'crap' in the app :-}
>
>I think Empty project is for more advanced developers. I prefer to start the new project with default ASP.NET MVC 4 application and update stuff inside it.

As above, I tend to find that that ends up giving you unnecessary baggage which needs to be selectively removed.....
I much prefer a clean start where I know exactly what everything is without digging around in the generated code.