Nicole Sullivan has nowhere near the experience in CSS as Douglas Crockford has with JavaScript. Compare their writings and their talks on their specialist subject matter. Also compare what their peer say about them. For Crockford the negatives are his opinions as to what constitutes good JavaScript, but not against his knowledge and experience.
Peer review is also an essential component. Crockford's contentious points are his opinions as to what constitutes JavaScript best practice, but his underlying knowledge and understanding is rock solid.
I've found Nicole's understanding and knowledge of CSS falls short of the standard necessary to advocate CSS best practice with tools such as this. So she's failing at working with the strengths of CSS.
Pick your role models carefully, and please, don't follow blindly.
Neither Crockford nor Sullivan is a role model for me, and I'm not following blindly. I'm merely observing that Sullivan successfully refactored the CSS on Facebook and got them onto a better development path. That's pretty hard.
I'm not going to blindly do whatever she says, but if someone wants to call her ideas "BS" and I don't know who that person is, I'm more likely to discard their opinion than hers. If that person is Eric Meyer, well OK then.
You say her "understanding and knowledge of CSS falls short." Can you point to facts she gets wrong (not just opinions you don't share)?
Peer review is also an essential component. Crockford's contentious points are his opinions as to what constitutes JavaScript best practice, but his underlying knowledge and understanding is rock solid.
I've found Nicole's understanding and knowledge of CSS falls short of the standard necessary to advocate CSS best practice with tools such as this. So she's failing at working with the strengths of CSS.
Pick your role models carefully, and please, don't follow blindly.