The article linked in the grandparent directly explains how utility classes are different from inline styles: there are infinitely many possibilities with inline styles; not so with utility classes. The empirical numbers in the article are fascinating. 400+ different colors in a single CSS project that’s supposed to be “semantic”. With utility classes, you are forced to choose from a finite set of colors.
That is not a matter of using inline utility classes. You can and probably should use e.g. CSS variables or @apply preprocessors to enforce a finite set of colors.
