[gb2world]

The templates can support many different skins. Your skin might not make use of a particular class or id, while another one might.

The presence of a class definition in a template also allows designers the opportunity to change and update styles without having to update the templates. You can add style to a class if you need to, or ignore it if you do not. So what you see as a nightmare could prove to be helpful to to other designers and allow QT architects to use a common template for many different designs. The more common the template - the easier it is to upgrade.

A newcomer might have a different perspective than you. If they want to update the style - they can just update the css if the class definition is already there. If it were not, they would have to open webmaster mode, find the template and add the class. Once they updated the template - it now cannot be automatically patched when they upgrade.

If you know how to use firebug - it really does not add difficulty. You can see what is being used and what is not.

If you remove all of this from the template, then you add complication to the templates - with different templates required to support different skins. The more the templates have to be unique - the more difficult it will be to upgrade and maintain them.

You certainly can optimize the templates and css to your own design, but a newcomer who wanted a different design might find that to be nightmarish.