I'm hesitent to say this is a bug, but #php has been real flakey lately, and there isn't much real technical support anywhere.  I tried running CSS with PHP4 in IE 5.4 and it seems CSS will only affect text outside regular echo statements.  I have encountered this error, and cannot seem to find a reason for it.  The only issue I can see, is that the linking of the css is attached on a file that is including my working script (which has my non-affected text).  

Not sure where the problem lies, but may be worth testing out.  Please avoid the ramming of my ass if I am incorrect, I'm just curious why.