My 02c for templates...

> Get rid of the import statements in the CSS files - they are not a good idea - Not only are they an additional overhead (File open / close transactions are memory intensive - much more so than the few bytes of data contained within the files), but handling templates in the manner that you recommend (ie only including the items that you require) is a VERY BAD IDEA...

CSS inheritance is unpredictable at best - overwriting selected statements as you are suggesting see more will be processed in different ways by different browsers. Some will give you the expected results - some will not.

There is no need to try to be clever with how you process templates - just stick to the normal way of doing things.

Less overheads = Faster loading

Standard template methodology = cross browser compatibility

> Get rid of UNI + Base - merge them into one folder so that creating a new template is as simple as copy + pasting one folder. (This will also have added advantage of addressing above issue too)

> Reduce the number of CSS files. Again - file open close transactions are more memory intensive than the data that they contain. There is no need to do this - no need to associate each template file with a CSS file - just put all of the CSS into one file - or perhaps split it into two or more if this makes more sense (admin / forum / site / user etc)...

CSS files have comments - use them to separate different sections.

> Get rid of inline style and inline php - it is bad coding at best. This is 2009 not 1999.

The way that you have templates laid out at the moment is simply overcomplicated.

Remember the KISS principle. ;)

DM.