[brandondrury]

Tables + CSS may be better solution, but we are not who decide about this anyway.

Speak for yourself. I vote with my dollars.

The table vs css thing has been around for a while and irrelevant to me. I pay for such a product so I don't have to think about these things. What I need is a product that "works".....which means I can build a huge community with the least amount of technical distractions.

The Stylevars would have been a fine system in 2001. A decade letter it's about the most inefficient manner for working that I can think of. In fact, I believe the vb3 system was superior. I could style a forum in an hour. The new method has taken me 30 so far and I'm still not happy.

Lack on inherit styles on the font end is INSANE.

Sometimes keeping fontsize on it's own and then other times including it under font is INSANE. Pick one. Stick with it. (I prefer the latter.)

The ability to view and change multiple css options at once seems to intuitive, that I'm tempted to develop a conspiracy theory as to why it was omitted.

Creating a little preview thing with stock data that updates real time via Regex or equivalent is something that could be developed in an afternoon for $80 using a guy on Odesk. In fact, I regret not having this created specifically for me before going into this theme change!

I never said it was easier than vb3, but you (or atleast I) can still achieve desirable results with a bit of work. It takes me a day or 2 to pop out a nice looking theme.

This "bit of work" is the problem. I don't have an issue with work. It's rare when I'm not putting in 18 hours. It's WHAT I'm working on. Walking is work, too. That's why we have cars and planes. I feel like I'm back to using a horse right now.

The same progressive viewpoint that leads to table-less css should be driving vBulletin to be as efficient as possible in achieving the webmaster's goals. vB4 is a step backwards in this regard so far.

it's easy to customize vb4.0 even after using the style generator

Maybe. It's NOT easy when you have an old theme you want to match. I played with the style generator for 2 hours and never got anything that looked acceptable to me. That's subjective, I guess.

Apparently, there is no logic at all behind the style system.

Definitely! It seems that if two web guys with any skill at all got together to create their dream setup, it would take them about 4 hours to put together something amazing, fast, ultra-flexible, and simple. The fact that 4 hours was not taken for something so important makes me wonder what else was thrown together on a whim with no thought.

Admittedly, the longer I work with vB4, the more I am disappointed - and that's not just about the styles.

Great! I really need an all-in-one solution for CMS, forum, etc. I wonder what else is out there.

For me personally as a designer, when I first saw the vB4 stylevar system in the early alpha testing, I immediate disliked it. I have only gone back to it when working on clients' sites.

What's interesting is it's not like they created a dumbed-down system so that anyone could create a theme. (I'm thinking the ol' Myspace layout generators.) I would have hated that, too. It seems the Stylevars system is bad for laymen and us experienced dudes.

It's a pathetic mess and vBulletin (as an entity) should really be embarrassed by it IMO.

"Embarrassed" is just a start. I'm wondering how many of us it would take demanding our money back to get them to actually give a damn about their software again.

Brandon