I advise all <LaTeX> users to switch to the new NFSS2 standard for <LaTeX> as soon as possible; the work done in NFSS2 is central to the development of the next version of <LaTeX>, written by the official maintainers of <LaTeX>, and if you get used to the NFSS way of thinking now, you will be in a good position to take advantage of <LaTeX>3 when it appears. The few remaining common style files which rely on the old behaviour of <LaTeX> are rapidly being converted, and many new font-related styles are being written now that it so much easier to do so.