Web Forms :: Master Page Changes Affect Other Pages

I have had this problem for a long time now and have just dealt with it but i am at the point finally that i need a solution or i need to look at other options besides visual studio for web development. it is way too time consuming now to have to worry about changing one thing and then having to search all other pages to be sure they are still fine. So this is what i have: visual studio 2008 pro sp1 asp.net web application targeting .net framework 3.5

a master page with several tables. i have broken out into several tables because it seemed to help the issue. the tables are all stacked on top of each other, no special positioning. the tables seem to be fine for the most part but if i make changes to the table which contains the content placeholder, i will find other pages have formatting incorrect, such as backcolor of text in different areas changed, bulleted lists are overlapping. when navigating to some pages, one of the tables i have at the top that is not related to the table with the content placeholdder, will not show the background picture, and it will show either different font size of the menu that is in the table with the content placeholder, or bold font on other buttons text, such as link button, on the master page.

so they seem to affect each other. changes on the master page affect the other pages and when displaying the other pages, whether in a browser in the IDE, parts of the master page will be affected. this is only on certain pages and they are never consistent. they will stay consistent once changed, but each time i make a change to the master page, the pages which are affected are not consistent. However, it used to be a issue that was always consistent with certain pages i kept in their own folder. i had taken the time once to go through them and make fixes and after that i didn't really have any more issues. but now they are being affected again as well as others.

i had started using link buttons instead of hyperlinks because it seemed to not affect the other pages when formatting them. for instance i would highlight the backcolor of a link with yellow, and other pages text in random places would show with the same yellow backcolor. it does not seem to matter what any of the affected text is in whether in p or div, it doesn't seem to follow a pattern other than sometimes it does seem to favor text that is bold. i think in some ways it has to do with new content pages i add to the site. those seem to be the ones that are usually affected for sure. but there are always others and i never know for sure which ones they will be.