CSS, pseudoclasses and tables

The website:
http://jloquinn.apk.net/USS_Huron/crew/crewmanifest.html

The setup:

I used two tables to display data on this page.  The first has rows that are
colorcoded for variuous departments, the second is a legend of what the
codes mean, and what the rankings are.  I use pseudo classes in CSS to
change the background color, and the color of the font in the various cells.
I put the class statement into the <tr> element and thus convert the
background and font color to match.  The general background of the page is
black, with grey text.

The problems:

1) I have a user, who says the pages all apear blank, no color at all.  He
uses IE5, and since I also use IE5 I am at a loss for why this might happen,
or what the solution might be except to go in and add bgcolor to each td
element, and have to add color change font elements to all the text.

2) In the second table I use the psuedoclass to change the background of the
<td> element.  and in the adjacent <td> I give the meaning of the color.
Since the pseudoclass also sets the font to black, the text disapears in the
adjacent <td>, and all other text that is not redefined.  This only happens
in Netscape.

I could redo the whole site without CSS but the font tags do not like to
work over a whole table so I have to set a new font at each TD tedious, and
not very productive.  Any suggestions on how to create the effect I am
looking for, and yet allow my visitors to see my page if they have a quirky
browser...

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