When in my initial stages of development, this was a question that usually used to bug me. You know, seperately declare styles for each type of text you wanted. Then i was really new to the web world. Just that you could repeat a formatting, wasnt too convincing a thought for me to start using CSS. But finally one day, I had a project that required me to write entirely CSS driven sites. That was the time when I actually realised the power of CSS. CSS at the least is able to do the following things for you.

• Keeps presentation totally away from the content, making it easier and thus more lucrative for the search engines to read your pages’ content. Thus increasing your search engine visibility.
• By following the above point, it rejuventes the actual meaning of the web i.e. a place to share information.
• Gives more flexibility and control in the specification of presentational characteristics
• Reduces complexity and repetition in the structural content thus facilitating querying and document transformation options as well as being more readable in code form.
• Allows the same markup page to be presented in different styles for different rendering methods, such as on-screen, in print, by voice (when read out by a speech-based browser or screen reader) and on Braille-based, tactile devices, thereby enhancing accessibility, since content pages can specify the type of each attached stylesheet.
• Allows reuse of stylesheets (by the author or by others) and reuse by others of document content (e.g., for others who wish to use the content at their own website but with their own styles, etc.)
• It increases download speed, especially when multiple pages reference the same stylesheet, since browsers will often cache stylesheets after the first visit.

This gave me quite a reason to use CSS. With time going by, I came across the actual powers of the CSS, and now, I can proudly say, I use CSS, and make the most of it.