This seems directly in opposition to my experience of Tailwind. Assuming you are using some sort of component based setup, like React, Tailwind mercilessly enforces consistency. You can't just use padding-left: 10px in one place and padding-left: 12px in another. Same goes for font-sizes and everything else. You're locked into the design system to such a degree that its a lot of work to deviate from the standards. Couple this with components that ensure the proper reuse of style and markup and everything is consistent everywhere.
If you are working on more of document project where markup reuse through components or partials isn't available then I could totally see your design elements like buttons or cards becoming inconsistent but your spacing, font-sizes, z-indexes etc. will still follow the system.
If you are working on more of document project where markup reuse through components or partials isn't available then I could totally see your design elements like buttons or cards becoming inconsistent but your spacing, font-sizes, z-indexes etc. will still follow the system.