I feel stupid even asking this question but I'm stumped. Please come to my rescue!
The font-size for the body of my document is set at 76%.
p at 95% h1 at 130% h2 at 115% you get the drift...
I also have a table within a page (for tabular data!) and the text contained inside the td or th tags appears abnormally large in IE6. I styled the font-size on all td's.. IE6 still giving me trouble. Even if I reduce font-size to 76% in my IE6-specific stylesheet it appears larger than it ought to be.
Since I can't see the html, I am going to have to say that if your hack is working, stick with it. You might have an extra div around the table for all I know or there could be something in your stylesheet that you are not seeing. I have a hard time giving advice when I can't see what I am talking about. If you put a link to a public version of the page, let me know. Thanks Ben