RadGridView CellTemplate on dynamic columns

I need to change the CellTemplate of a RadGridView. All of the examples I can find online defines the Columns statically in the Xaml, and then in that Column tag, they define the CellTemplate:

    <telerik:RadGridView AutoGenerateColumns="False" ItemsSource="{Binding}" RowStyleSelector="{StaticResource styleSelector}">
        <telerik:RadGridView.Columns>
            <telerik:GridViewDataColumn DataMemberBinding="{Binding ID}" CellTemplateSelector="{StaticResource templateSelector}" />
        </telerik:RadGridView.Columns>
    </telerik:RadGridView>

The above example loads the CellTemplate only for the column with the heading "ID", and does that for all of the cells in that column. 

I have managed to load the CellTemplates in the code behind but this required me to pass an instance of the whole grid to the ViewModel, and also had to add a dependency Property to the GridView to bind the Columns of the grid to a GridViewColumnCollection in the ViewModel. 

This is a very messy workaround, one that I'm sure will get me fired if seen by the wrong eyes. What I need to do is something similar to this:

    <telerik:RadGridView.CellTemplateSelector>
        <local:MyTemplateSelector>
            <local:MyTemplateSelector.NormalTemplate>
                <DataTemplate>
                    ...Some [Normal] template...
                </DataTemplate>
            </local:MyTemplateSelector.NormalTemplate
            <local:MyTemplateSelector.DropdownTemplate>
                <DataTemplate>
                    ...Some [ComboBox] template...
                </DataTemplate>
            </local:MyTemplateSelector.DropdownTemplate>
        </local:MyTemplateSelector>
    </telerik:RadGridView.CellTemplateSelector>

I honestly have no idea why this RadGridView makes it so difficult to change the CellTemplate, because this prevents you from changing a common property such as the Foreground Color in the Label found in the ContentTemplate in the Cell itself.. Any ideas as to what I can do?