The bolds and italics weren't rendering correctly in my browser, so I checked the source:
<SPAN STYLE="font-weight: bold"><SPAN STYLE="font-style: italic">Bold and italic text</SPAN></SPAN>
versus
<b><i>Bold and italic text</i></b>

99 bytes vs. 34 bytes to load for nonsense. Heck, even <em> or <strong> in lieu of the dumbass spans would be better.

My browser wasn't rendering it correctly because it doesn't support CSS. When did we update phpBB?