Dave,
It sounds like something in the cascade is not set right, then. In my experience, a couple of things to check would be:
1. Make sure your global link and rollover css is near the beginning.
2. See if there is something specifically un-setting your link style such as in a reset css file. Such as the "p" or "div" global tag getting stripped of a link color could cause the issue.
3. The other thing you could do is specifically denote certain tags combined with the a tag such as "p a:link, div a:link."
In theory, you body a:link or even just a:link should be inherited by all other tags.
Cheers,
Brian
