Compressing Critical CSS Payloads Without Breaking Layout

Revisited global styles in a legacy React app.
🚫 Before:

• Global CSS: 240KB uncompressed
• No purging of unused styles ✅ Fix:
• Switched to Tailwind w/@layer and @apply
• Enabled PurgeCSS in production
• Inlined above-the-fold critical styles 📉 Result: CSS payload dropped to 288KB ⚡ First Contentful Paint improved by ~400ms (Lighthouse) 💡 CSS doesn't need to be big to be powerful.