Vertical-align: bottom not working

Question

I thought vertical-align was supposed to work with inline elements. Yet for some reason everything in the gray div is aligned to the top, not the bottom.

<div style="position:absolute; top:130px; right: 80px; width: 230px; background-color:Gray; height:30px;" class="defaultText" id="pager">
    <span style="vertical-align:bottom;">Page Size:</span>
    <select style="vertical-align:bottom; font-size:8pt; margin-top: 0; margin-left:3px; height:16px; text-align:center;">
        <option value="50">50</option>
        <option value="100">100</option>
        <option value="200">200</option>
        <option value="500">500</option>
        <option value="10000">*</option>
    </select>
    <div style="float:right;">
        <span style="vertical-align:bottom; color:Blue; cursor: pointer; margin-right: 10px;"><</span>
        <input style="vertical-align:bottom; height:12px; font-size:8pt; width: 20px;" type="text" data-bind="value: pageNum" />
        <span style="vertical-align:bottom;"> of </span>
        <span style="vertical-align:bottom;" data-bind="text: numPages"></span>
        <span style="vertical-align:bottom; color:Blue; cursor: pointer; margin-left: 5px;">></span>
    </div>
</div>

Answer 1

Unless you're dealing with a table cell, what vertical-align does is aligns the element with respect to adjacent elements, particularly text. So, the elements in the gray div should be lined up with each other, not the bottom of the div. See examples at http://phrogz.net/css/vertical-align/index.html.