In case my solution gets lost in our other lengthy discussion, here is my proposed solution to the problem.

Instead of including the template views in a package xml/zip.

I removed them from the package and added the views to the Razor class library, they are then copied to the website project using the build targets file in the same way as the App_Plugins folder. Yo should then be able to use a Condition to only copy if newer or desn't exist etc.

        <PropertyGroup>
            <MediaWizForumsContentFilesPath>$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)..\App_Plugins\MediaWizards\**\*.*</MediaWizForumsContentFilesPath>
            <MediaWizViewsFilesPath>$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)..\Views\*.*</MediaWizViewsFilesPath>
        </PropertyGroup>

      <Target Name="CopyMediaWizForumViews" BeforeTargets="Build">
        <ItemGroup>
          <MediaWizForumsViews Include="$(MediaWizViewsFilesPath)" />
        </ItemGroup>
        <Message Text="Copying MediaWiz.Forums Views: $(MediaWizViewsFilesPath) - #@(MediaWizForumsViews->Count()) files" Importance="high" />
        <Copy SourceFiles="@(MediaWizForumsViews)" DestinationFiles="@(MediaWizForumsViews->'$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Views\%(Filename)%(Extension)')" SkipUnchangedFiles="true" 
          Condition="%(Filename)!='' AND (!Exists('$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Views\%(Filename)%(Extension)') OR $([System.DateTime]::Parse('%(ModifiedTime)').Ticks) &gt; $([System.IO.File]::GetLastWriteTime('$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Views\%(Filename)%(Extension)').Ticks))"/>
      </Target>

Then in my PackageMigrationbase, I registered the views as templates.

    protected override void Migrate()
    {
        //register the views as templates first
        _fileService.CreateTemplateWithIdentity("ForumMaster", "forumMaster",null);
        var master = _fileService.GetTemplate("forumMaster");

        if (master != null)
        {
            var templatesToFind = new[] { "forum", "forumPost", "login", "members", "profile", "register", "reset", "verify", "searchPage" };
            foreach (var template in templatesToFind)
            {
                _fileService.CreateTemplateWithIdentity(template.FirstCharToUpper(), template,null,master);
            }

        }
        //Now the templates are registered we can import the package xml
        ImportPackage.FromEmbeddedResource<ImportPackageXmlMigration>().Do();
        Context.AddPostMigration<PublishRootBranchPostMigration>();
    }