httpwebwitch - 8:19 pm on Aug 13, 2012 (gmt 0)

The benefits of a modern approach to CSS style outweigh the arguable benefits on small screens. If proper caching is employed, reusing a CSS external sheet is better than forcing the client to download the complete stylistic makeup with every page view.

For example.

The markup of this page you're viewing right now uses the <font> tag extensively. I just did a fun experiment - removing all the <font>s from this page reduced the page size by 11K.

Throwing out the <table> markup, I'd guess would slim it down by approximately 7,200 characters. there are 84 <b> tags... so using a once-defined CSS rule for bold would lighten this page by another 588 characters.

I bet this page could be redesigned to use half the bandwidth it currently uses, by employing modern web design techniques. And by modern, I mean techniques people were using 8 years ago.