I'm guessing that they had a LOT of meetings about the font size of those links, and after lots of arguing between 8 and 9 pt, whoever wanted the 8pt font won, and REALLY wanted to rub it in "Mr. 9pt"'s face. Then there was a similar meeting about the color. Because both are SO important, they both required their own meetings.
Or some manager was had a horrible experience with a previous site that s/he worked on, where some text wasn't the precise font and color s/he wanted, and made it a point to be right on this project and forced it down the developers' throats, so one person went overboard to ensure this manager would see it was set.