Fotiman - 1:53 pm on Aug 14, 2012 (gmt 0)

The flexibility of allowing the device to determine the correct font via the FONT tag, means far less dreaded 'pinch' and 'zoom'

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. By "correct font" do you mean the font size, the font family, or both? Whatever you meant, there is absolutely nothing that the font tag gives you that CSS doesn't, except for more muddled HTML and less efficiency. The font tag size using + and - just give you relative sizing, which is not any more flexible or user friendly than using relative sizing in CSS.

Additionally, the FONT tag is always faster than CSS declared fonts. Fonts are always inline and render faster than CSS applied fonts. Additionally, css is usually external with require another file load or a cache if modified check.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahah!
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were joking for second there, simply because that's such a ridiculous argument. The font tag is going to add to your HTML page weight, adding to the download time. An external CSS file, on the other hand, will likely be cached. In addition, it's not as though you would have 1 external CSS file just for your fonts. And rendering of CSS applied fonts... you're talking microseconds. There's no logical argument to be made for speed by using font tags. Sorry, this point of view is just plain silly.

In addition, not having a clean separation of markup and presentation will probably lead to increased maintenance time, as developers will need to be looking in multiple places if they want to change the font appearance.

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.

I've been saying that for years, but it falls on deaf ears. There's a ton of efficiency to be gained on WebmasterWorld.