Why Are Some Fonts So Bad ?

[Nick Boyce <nick@glimmer.demon.co.uk>]

I'm running KDE 3.1.4 with XFree86 4.1.0-16 on Woody, with anti-aliasing 
switched on, and although the desktop mostly looks pretty slick, there 
are still some *really* bad font renditions in some parts of some 
windows.

For instance, the font used for the words "Did you know ?" in the "Tip 
Of The Day" dialogs offered by both Konsole and Kate is *awful* - it 
looks a mess ... utterly uneven and broken.

I've put a screen-capture of the Kate Tip-Of-The-Day dialog on my 
website, at http://www.glimmer.demon.co.uk/kde/kate-lousy-font.png if 
anyone feels like having a look.

Can anyone hazard a possible explanation for this ?
Does anyone else see anything better looking in this dialog on their own 
machines ?

(I use a Voodoo 3 graphics card, in case that's relevant, and the 3Dfx 
Voodoo 3 driver is selected in KXconfig).

Cheers,
Nick Boyce
Bristol, UK