Now you're the one asking me questions, heh... lol Well what I usually do when I develop a site is to create a template that contains mere blank tables and my logo. Then I do the default.css next. That way, I don't have to worry about the formatting each time I create a new page. All I have to do is to fill in the contents of the page and some images.

Oh wait a sec, what did you mean by faster? Did I get you right, or you meant faster-loading as in graphics and other multimedia contents load faster? You are using Fireworks to optimize your images, aren't you?