At least one mysterious <i>l</i> or some other character has to appear in any <s . . .>-block that has an <img . . .>. Otherwise, the image is misaligned.

font-size:5mm
ll l l l l & hHhH hHhH hHhH
font-size:7mm
ll l l l l & hHhH hHhH hHhH
font-size:10mm
ll l l l l & hHhH hHhH hHhH
font-size:12mm
ll l l l l & hHhH hHhH hHhH
font-size:14mm
ll l l l l & hHhH hHhH hHhH
The CSS juju is

#stv {vertical-align:center; position:relative; top:.02em;height:.03em; width:12em}

and here is the algorithm for font-size:7mm: <div id=msm style=height:2.25em;font-size:7mm> <u> <s id=s4><u>l</u><img id=stv src=sqr.gif>l</s> <s id=s2><i>l</i><img id=stv src=sqr.gif></s> <s id=n0><i>l</i><img id=stv src=sqr.gif></s> <s id=n2><i>l</i><img id=stv src=sqr.gif></s> <s id=n4><i>l</i><img id=stv src=sqr.gif></s> </u> </div> (Now works on IE7and Foxfire, and the invisible <i>l</i> is no longer a holy mystery.)