css @import to <link>

[PinkMilk]

when storing style sheets to file vBulletin uses @import:

@import url("clientscript/vbulletin_css/style-xxxx-xxx.css");

this has a negative impact on web page performance, is it some how possible to change this to link?

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style-xxxx-xxx.css" />

--- Update ---


I have found this in includes/adminfunctions_template.php which looks to be the code I need to edit:

PHP Code:

if (write_css_file($cssfilename, $css))
                {
                    $css = "@import url(\"$cssfilename\");";
                } 


BUT

there is also this function that deletes the older css files:

PHP Code:

function delete_css_file($styleid, $csscontents)
{
    if (preg_match('#@import url\("(clientscript/vbulletin_css/style-\w{8}-0*' . $styleid . '\.css)"\);#siU', $csscontents, $match))
    {
        // attempt to delete old css file
        @unlink("./$match[1]");
    }
} 


so would need to change the preg_match regex for it to work with <link>, bit of an ask but can somebody be kind enough to rewrite the function?