Hiring Adlago to rebuild the CSS perhaps is a way to go.. IMHO.

Even if it meant it was almost impossible to theme?

 

So CSS wasn't the speed issue?

I don't use ads on my site, so I looked for other solutions for my site as well. For a site with ads, the CSS should be improved.

Surely on a site with ads, if they're slowing it down then it's the js in the ads doing it?

 

Surely on a site with ads, if they're slowing it down then it's the js in the ads doing it?

How many times have you, with respect to you, tried to solve a similar case of a site sinking in speed? I would appreciate it if you could point to your example of a solution to this, not the comments of gurus who profit from their articles...

 

not the comments of gurus who profit from their articles...

As opposed to the ones selling their own brand of snake oil 🫣

I've run a web based business for many years, so it's fair to say I've done my share of problem solving website related issues. 

The best way to deal with most problems is to find to the root cause. So if it's ads slowing a site down, that would be the place to look. If it's a slow server, it would be that, and so on.

Messing about with unrelated things to attempt to use them as sticking plasters is seldom the answer in the long or short term. Particularly when doing that is time consuming, can cause other complications and takes time away from what you could be doing or spending your money on.

I've also learned when to figure out when a problem actually needs solving and when it doesn't. And I'd recommend to anyone who cares to listen that a site scoring reasonably on speed tests, passing core web vitals and providing a good user experience doesn't need time or money wasting on trying to score a bit better on speed tests.

 

As opposed to the ones selling their own brand of snake oil 🫣

I've run a web based business for many years, so it's fair to say I've done my share of problem solving website related issues. 

The best way to deal with most problems is to find to the root cause. So if it's ads slowing a site down, that would be the place to look. If it's a slow server, it would be that, and so on.

Messing about with unrelated things to attempt to use them as sticking plasters is seldom the answer in the long or short term. Particularly when doing that is time consuming, can cause other complications and takes time away from what you could be doing or spending your money on.

I've also learned when to figure out when a problem actually needs solving and when it doesn't. And I'd recommend to anyone who cares to listen that a site scoring reasonably on speed tests, passing core web vitals and providing a good user experience doesn't need time or money wasting on trying to score a bit better on speed tests.

Managing a web business does not mean solving technological problems - there are other people working on relevant cases and solving them, and that has nothing to do with this topic here.
You have not provided any solution to the site's fast loading issue.
Maybe your "IT bees" etc. are more useful for this topic than you. I'm sorry.

 

Maybe your "IT bees" etc. are more useful for this topic than you. I'm sorry.

And mayhap there reaches a point of diminishing returns?

To spend 20 hour to gain .0010ms of responsiveness is honestly ridiculous.  You are NOT on a drag strip against another vehicle.... .there IS a simple point of diminishing returns... and apparently you have MORE than enough extra time to devote to them... Most don't , and honestly do not need to.

Little late to the party here, but just upgraded to 4.7..

Do you happen to know if its possible to edit the CSS of a style / element in the admin panel any more? Looking in the inspect element, I see the target element I want is styled in css_built0 - which obviously refers to skin ID 0, but this skin/theme isnt available to edit in the admincp, so no custom.css attached to it I assume?

Technically you can edit/style any element. You would use custom.css to override what is already being used. 

In terms of looking at which theme its styled in, thats the theme you are on at the time you inspect