While we continue to support HTTP based users (as opposed to HTTP2) the practice of inlining assets provides some advantages; primarily it reduces the number of HTTP requests required to serve the page to the user. However, placing inline assets in the authoring style sheets is discouraged.
Consider this:
.rr-Outfit { min-height: $size-quadruple; background-image: url(data:image/gif;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAQCAMAAAAoLQ9TAAAAA3NCSVQICAjb4U/gAAAAw1BMVEX///8AAACEhIQAAABYWFgAAAAAAAAAAAB6enomJiYAAAAiIiJ4eHgAAABiYmJgYGAAAACJiYkAAAC0tLR/f3/IyMjHx8e/v7+vr6+fn5+ZmZmUlJSBgYFmZmYiIiIQEBAAAAD////w8PDv7+/i4uLh4eHf39/W1tbS0tLR0dHMzMzHx8fFxcXCwsK/v7+4uLi0tLSvr6+rq6ulpaWfn5+ZmZmQkJCPj498fHxwcHBgYGBAQEAwMDAgICAfHx8QEBAAAAAphWZmAAAAQXRSTlMAESIiMzNEVWZmZneIiKqqu8zM3d3u7u7u7u7u7u7u7u7//////////////////////////////////////////wP/q/8AAAAJcEhZcwAACxIAAAsSAdLdfvwAAAAVdEVYdENyZWF0aW9uIFRpbWUAMjEvNS8xMpVX8IQAAAAcdEVYdFNvZnR3YXJlAEFkb2JlIEZpcmV3b3JrcyBDUzVxteM2AAAAw0lEQVQYlU2P6VLCUAyFD1KvWFQ2F1ChnLLW2oIs1ZZC8...