I'm with Jordan 100% in this case. However what's done is done, and as a result we have a plugin which is even better than before.

What most don't understand is that removing this feature, removes the freedoms to work on your site to easily set the borders and margins without having to learn CSS. Most end users don't know css, and they don't want to learn either. All they want to do is type their content, and run their real businesses. So more than anything else, it's about taking away some of the freedoms, unjustifiably. Why? Because having this feature in the core, it did not harm anybody. It did not break things, it did not slow down the sites, or any other side effects. Those who liked it used it, like many of my clients, and those who did not, did not. Some don't use the editor (tinymce), should that be removed next?

Do you realize how many repeated circular discussions I now have to have with some end users, so they can do the same thing that before took them 10 seconds?

This is nothing but a elitist power play as far I'm concerned, because I still have to read a reasonable reason why it should be taken off the core - Some examples:

- "In retrospect it is clear that this type of functionality should have been handled via a plugin or theme CSS to begin with,"... - Really? Beside imposing your elitist view and will on the less knowledgeable, what else is clear?

"you can handle this in a proper semantic way without inline styles. It just hasn’t been done that way for historical reasons. More importantly though manhandling your content with inline styles like this is going counter to then intentions of the original theme designer and begs two important questions:" - How do you reconcile the fact that the Wordpress.com's support team is suggesting to the site owners to use inline styles to put different margins and borders?

"this is going counter to then intentions of the original theme designer" - I have not seen or used a third party theme that I did not change some things, and customize them. Who cares about the intentions of the original theme designer. the only thing that matters to me are what are my clients and my intentions, and how things should operate and look. Has anyone seen a theme and said, "wow - this is perfect, I would not change one thing"! Never, in my case.

What if the margins and borders set by the theme are not what the site owner wants/likes, so he wants to change them, easily, without diving into the code. What other options do the site owners at wordpress.com have besides learning css, to make this changes?

What makes you think that you know what our customers want, and how they should work? I thought wordpress's main purposes were about freedoms, and how easy it is to operate. By removing this feature, it does the opposite. But hey, this feature is gone, and that's that, but stop spiking the ball, and tell the end users how clever and brilliant you are, and how pathetic they are for not knowing anything. Seriously though, What was the harm by having it in there? If you don't like it, don't use it - but let the others be, don't take away their freedoms.

And by saying inline css is the wrong method, does not make that a fact? Why is it incorrect? TinyMCE does inline css all the time, in fact, that's the main way it formats the content on the fly. What are we talking about here?