Is this hostile to users who need custom CSS for accessibility? Or do those users do something else entirely?
I sometimes wish Google would release numbers when they make changes. Finding out how many people used the plus operator (and how many of those used it correctly) made Google's removal of it slightly easier.
Edit: the + operator for searching, apologies for not being clear.
> Is this hostile to users who need custom CSS for accessibility?
Its just plain hostile to users. Accessibility is just one of the many ways it is hostile to users. (Generally, the designer-centric app-ification of the web which has been going on for since commercial interests other than those whose interest was in selling access to the internet first discovered the value of the internet to reach the public is user hostile, and this is just part of it.)
As someone that likes to pretty much always override author's styles, Chrome is pretty much out for me. There is no easy way in the browser settings to select your own stylesheet. Also there is no easy way to just turn off the author's stylesheet. Doing so can be quite useful for troublesome sites. In Firefox it's View -> Page Style -> None. But even that's obtuse. Not being able to easily flip between stylesheets in the browsers - has meant that author's can't really be bothered to supply them. Having some free well rounded Core styles, that users can apply to any site would be a nice to have feature in the browser, or alternatively making it very simple to add your own.
Opera is the only browser that felt like it let me apply my own stylesheet. Other browers behave inconsistantyl when adding my own. Even Firefox is odd. My compromise is just to specify foreground and background colours, with a larger font size, and an easy to read font. That way the layouts don't get that borked. Reading a well designed page with logical flow off can read quite well, if you apply your own styles, or use your desktops.
I sometimes wish Google would release numbers when they make changes. Finding out how many people used the plus operator (and how many of those used it correctly) made Google's removal of it slightly easier.
Edit: the + operator for searching, apologies for not being clear.