WordPress if famous for its backwards compatibility. That’s if you ignore its non-existent CSS strategy. Over seven years ago the Gutenberg block editor was rushed into v5.0. Ever since, WordPress has polluted the front-end with impossible to manage styles.
I’ve written for years about how WordPress breaks CSS and how horrendous theming has become the norm. I tried to raise issues but they went nowhere. My last remaining issue was closed today, unresolved.
After all this time the only manageable way to build bespoke WordPress themes is to disable the block editor entirely. I haven’t bothered to write up my approach but it’s very similar to Amber Weinberg’s “Building Modular Themes with ACF Flexible Content” — pair that with Terrence Eden’s “A big list of things I disable in WordPress” and you’ve got a similar base theme to mine.
I shared a tip recently to wrangle plugin CSS into a cascade layer. Perhaps a similar approach, with hooks or output buffering, can rein in WordPress pollution. It’s such a moving target though, I’d hate to maintain that.
These days I strongly advise clients to question whether WordPress is worth the investment. Most websites can be static with their infrequent content updates. Use a headless CMS for regular news/blogs if that’s cost effective.
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