Okay, for those of you that are interested.
After much ado, here's what ended up happening for the change of the "table.container" from "cart pages" versus the "product pages" with an if/then statement.
This should be able to done with any changes you want to have done from the CSS to the "cart pages" versus the "product pages", but don't hold me to that, I'm new at this too!
First you will need two CSS files.
One for the Cart [skin1.css] and one for the Non-Cart [skin1_cart.css].
Then you need to make a copy of your customer/home.tpl (always save the original file, just incase this doesn't work with something else you've changed
)
Then with the customer/home.tpl you need to find your CSS line.
Should look like this:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{$SkinDir}/skin1.css" />
Then right after it you need to
{if $main eq "cart" AND $mode eq "checkout" AND $mode eq "order_message"}
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{$SkinDir}/skin1_cart.css />
{/if}
This worked for me, hope it helps someone out there too!
enjoy
and thanks for the help everyone who was involved!
great job!