template usage

Here is my actual CSS file that I'm attempting to use, and is giving me mixed results...

<!-- ############################################ -->
<!--  Default universal html preferences -->
<!-- ############################################ -->

body {
  background-color : #ffffff;	
}


<!-- ############################################ -->
<!--  This stuff is for the template tables used for assembling the gifs -->
<!-- ############################################ -->

table td.headerOrange {
	background-color: #ff9b07;
	padding:0.0px;
	margin: 0in;
}

table td.compactwhite {
	background-color: #ffffff;
	padding:0.0px;
	margin: 0in;
}

table td.compactblack {
	background-color: #000000;
	padding:0.0px;
	margin: 0in;
}

table td p.compactwhite {
	color:#000000;
	font-family:serif;
	margin:0in;
	margin-left:1.0in;
	margin-bottom:.0001pt;
	text-align: left;
}



<!-- ############################################ -->
<!--  Standard orange header cell with black text & dark orange bars -->
<!-- ############################################ -->

table td.stdHead {
	padding: 5px;
	text-align: center;
	background-color: #FFD28E;
	border-top: solid #FF9B07 1.5pt;
	border-bottom: solid #FF9B07 1.5pt;
}

table td p.stdHead {
	color:#000000;
	font-size:15px;
	font-family:sans-serif;
	font-weight:bold;
	text-decoration:none;
	margin:0.1in;
}


<!-- ############################################ -->
<!--  Standard grey body cell with black text -->
<!-- ############################################ -->

table td.stdBody {
	text-align: justify;
	background-color: #eeeeee;
	padding: 5px;
}

table td p.stdBody {
	color:#000000;
	font-family:serif;
	font-size:12px;
	margin:0.2in;
	text-align: justify;
}

.stdBody A {
	color:#ffffff;
	font-family:serif;
	text-decoration:none;
}

.stdBody A:Visited {
	color:#999999;
	font-family:serif;
	text-decoration:none;
}

.stdBody A:Hover {
	color:#FF9900;
	font-family:serif;
	text-decoration:underline;
}


<!-- ############################################ -->
<!--  Compact grey body cell with black text -->
<!-- ############################################ -->

table td.compactBody {
	text-align: justify;
	background-color: #eeeeee;
	padding: 5px;
}

table td p.compactBody {
	color:#000000;
	font-family:serif;
	font-size:12px;
	margin:0.01in;
	margin-left:0.1in;
	margin-right:0.1in;
	text-align: justify;
}

.compactBody A {
	color:#ffffff;
	font-family:serif;
	text-decoration:none;
}

.compactBody A:Visited {
	color:#999999;
	font-family:serif;
	text-decoration:none;
}

.compactBody A:Hover {
	color:#FF9900;
	font-family:serif;
	text-decoration:underline;
}

table td p.orangeBoldBody {
	color: #FF9B07;
	font-size:12px;
	font-family:sans-serif;
	font-weight:bold;
	text-decoration:none;
	margin:0in;
	margin-left:.1in
}


<!-- ############################################ -->
<!--  Indented grey body cell with black text -->
<!-- ############################################ -->

table td.indentStdBody {
	text-align: justify;
	background-color: #eeeeee;
	padding: 5px;
}

table td p.indentStdBody {
	color:#000000;
	font-family:serif;
	font-size:12px;
	margin:0.1in;
	margin-left:0.6in;
	text-align: justify;
}

.indentStdBody A {
	color:#ffffff;
	font-family:serif;
	text-decoration:none;
}

.indentStdBody A:Visited {
	color:#999999;
	font-family:serif;
	text-decoration:none;
}

.indentStdBody A:Hover {
	color:#FF9900;
	font-family:serif;
	text-decoration:underline;
}


<!-- ############################################ -->
<!--  Standard Nav bar preferences  -->
<!-- ############################################ -->

table td.MenuText {
	padding: 0;
	padding-left: 5px;
	padding-bottom: 2px;
	padding: 5px;
	text-align: left;
	background-color: #FFD28E;
	border-top: solid #FF9B07 1.5pt;
	border-bottom: solid #FF9B07 1.5pt;
}

table td p.MenuText {
	color:#000000;
	font-family:serif;
	font-size : 9pt;
	text-align: left;
	margin: 0.0in;
	margin-left: 0.05in;
	margin-bottom: 0.05in;
}

table td ul li.MenuText {
	list-style-type: square;
	list-style-position: outside;
	list-style-image: url(http://www.shawnroering.com/images/bullet.gif);
}

.MenuText A {
	color:#666666;
	text-decoration:none;
}

.MenuText A:Visited {
	color:#666666;
	text-decoration:none;
}

.MenuText A:Hover {
	color:#ff9b07;
	font-size : 9pt;
	text-decoration:underline;
}

And this is a sample of one of the "data" pages that are included into a copy of the template.

<TABLE cellSpacing="0" cellPadding="0" WIDTH="590" ALIGN="center" BORDER="0">
	<tr>
		<td width="10"><spacer type="block" width="1"></td>
		<td width="580" class="stdHead"><p class="stdHead">Greetings</p></td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td width="10"><spacer type="block" width="1"></td>
		<td width="580" class="stdBody"><p class="stdBody">Thank you for visting my website.  Return visitors well find that I have added lots of new information, and infact moved many of my old pages.  I would like to discourage linking directly to individual pages, because I may want to move them from time to time. Please direct links to my website to www.shawnroering.com, and I promise to make finding information as painless as possible.<br> Thank You.</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td width="10" height="20"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="20"></td>
		<td width="580" height="20"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="20"></td>
	</tr>
</TABLE>

The problem is that my CSS code is being interpreted differently and causing some quite horrid results...

Can anyone provide any advice as to what I can to do fix this problem? am I doing any of this wrong? is there a better way?

I'm resorting to reworking much of my former "data" pages to using nested tables.. (shudder) I'd rather not do that, but I don't know any other way to help garuntee a certain level of quality if the CSS doesn't lay out my text correctly..

Huge! Nice one for being complete.

First thing that jumps out is that the CSS comments are wrong. You've used HTML comments, when you should be using:
/* blah blah */
within the CSS file.

Try that... will look deeper just in case though!