The table inheritance bug is a different issue. The proper syntax is that the style name follows the period. Child elements are separated by a space. So for instance:
.classname{\n padding: 2px;\n}
will set padding for any elements that are of class 'classname'. Whereas:
.classname p{\n padding: 2px;\n}
will set padding for any <p> elements that are first-level decendants of an element that is of class 'classname', and:
p.classname{\n padding: 2px;\n}
will set padding for any <p> elements that are of class 'classname'.