Bloated CSS?

[Trudi]

Just out of interest, is there any conventional wisdom on the size of CSS files and at what point the words 'ridiculously excessive' might apply?

I found one today weighing in at 32kb and a whopping 1696 lines...I'm sure this isn't a record but it looked pretty scary!

[James]

I think it depends on the size of the site it serves, and the variety of styles within the site. 32k / 1696 is big, but it's only downloaded once and then called from the browser cache (assuming it is an external style sheet). 32k is an almost instantaneous download on broadband, but for the first time dial up visitor it's going to take up to 10 seconds just to get the CSS.

That said, it's best practice to do some housekeeping on your stylesheets, to keep them as lean as possible.