Sub Articulo 55.0

I've been using fullpage.sty for all of my LaTeX documents. The smaller
margins seem a lot more "normal" than the standard LaTeX margins, which
create a document where it seems that half of the page if filled with white
space. After seeing all of the warnings about leaving layout to the
xperts,
I wonder why the default creates such huge margins. Is that in keeping with
standard typographic conventions? If so, why does it look so strange to me.