Comment by rjvin

A lot of fonts these days come with 4 different styles of numerals/figures (http://fontfeed.com/archives/figuring-out-numerals/). Typographically each has its different uses: inline with lowercase letters you usually use proportional oldstlye figures, while tabular ones are reserved for numerical data like dollar amounts and things. If you dislike the default figure style of a typeface you should see if they have different ones available via OpenType features.