.tcat settings being overridden somehow - where do I look?

[legion_diabolic]

I am using a heavily modified version of a style someone else created - it was basically handed to me with the instructions "use this but make it better". In the process of attempting to make it "better" I created a (dark gradient) background for the category strips and changed the font and textlink colors accordingly ( to a very light color), using the style editor. here's the css:

.tcat
{
background: #D4D4D4 url(images/gradients/gradient_tcat.gif);
color: #CCCCCC;
font: bold 10pt verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
}
.tcat a:link
{
color: #CCCCCC;
text-decoration: none;
}
.tcat a:visited
{
color: #CCCCCC;
text-decoration: none;
}
.tcat a:hover, .tcat a:active
{
color: #CCCCCC;

Everything is fine except that textlinks in the category strips (class .tcat) are completely ignoring the settings I have entered in the style manager and instead they are a dark color that makes them unreadable. They are also displaying an underline on hover, which is not what I have specified in the style manager.

I thought I had it solved when I noticed .vb_menu_control was using the same background image and had it's links colors set to the darker color (#666666), so I changed it and voila! Nothing. All links in category strips are #666666 not #CCCCCC. Nothing else in the entire stylesheet references the .cat background image and I really need some help figuring out how my specified styles are being overidden. Thanks.

It's an adult oriented forum so I can't post links here.

Ps: For what it's worth - this problem is happening specifically on the main page that displays all the forums /forums/index.php