Change formatting vs. looking wrong I'm writing an article for a conference that has very strict style guidelines and I'm therefore very careful not to mess with the style. However, when using the style for the placement of author names, the 4 names (arranged in a 2x2 matrix) end up unaligned. It is not completely clear to me why - all of the names are of reasonable length. Should I try to edit the LaTeX style or how should I proceed?
These kinds of issues are normally fixed later in the publishing process.  If your paper is accepted you'll be asked to submit a final version of your paper in LaTeX.  A professional type setter will process the paper through LaTeX and should fix it up minor issues like these.  You should then be given a chance to review page proofs before final publication.  If the problem is still present in the page proof then you should mark up the page proof to request that this be fixed.