Im just getting my first install up and going.. starting to edit the style settings. So far, figured out how to mod the header and footer.

Now I am trying to get my hands on the css file. I found the admin cp page in which you have the interface to edit the settings. Thats all well and good, but I would rather just mod the css document by hand..

I couldnt find it looking in the file system, so I rendered my forum page in a browser and looked at the source. To my shock I see the css file has been embedded in the page. How can I get this situation more organized? I would prefer to just have the app load a css file.

The css is stored in the database along with the templates and it's inserted into the page upon load.

You can save the css as files but editing them is pointless as they'll be overwritten everytime you touch the templates (I'm not 100% on that, you may have to edit the css to override them, but I wouldn't want to leave them open to vb overwriting).
To transfer from the database to file-based go to admincp // vb options // style options // store css as files.

The best you can do is use the template css editor. You can use the boxes at the bottom to insert your own.

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"When you do something right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all" - "God", Futurama

My vB hacks: Site Backup (easily backup your forum files) -- Image Status Checker / Dead Image Finder - 3.5/3.6 -- Stop people mass deleting / editing their posts plugin - 3.6 -- v3arcade reduce scores to keep arcade competitive -- Make guests give a name when posting or replying - 3.0

Yeah I am getting used to using the vb panels to control things...

Just a bit confusing at first.

It can be overwhelming at first.
Have you read the vb docs, specifically the style manager part?