The original rationale for using @import for including a CSS file in HTML was that Netscape Navigator 4 did not understand the command and thus was an easy, eff

The original rationale for using @import for including a CSS file in HTML was that Netscape Navigator 4 did not understand the command and thus was an easy, effective and compliant way to exclude that browser, since it had atrocious support for stylesheets. Now that NN is no longer a factor it makes sense to relegate the use of @import to only within a CSS file. BWT, the screen flicker of IE is eliminated if LINK is used first (say to load a reset.css file) and any subsequent stylesheet loaded via @import behaves as it should.