User-Profile-Form.tpl.php not working. Help!
I'm struggling with what you're asking in the first portion of your question, but looking into the previous Stack Exchange page you referenced you can use the Panels module to quickly accomplish two column layouts for these forms.  You can also use template overrides to change the layout of the registration pages.

If you're specifically looking to quickly implement a tabbed UI for the user profile, I believe the Profile2 module may offer a built-in solution.


  "Also what would the variable look like for calling the custom field
  added to a user?"


You may need to use load_user() first to get a complete user object to access custom profile fields.

$account = user_load(&lt;USER-ID&gt;); //$node-&gt;uid or $user-&gt;uid