As an interim patch for web designers wanting to use different variants or cuts of the same font we'd recommend setting different font-family names in the @font-face definitions, and explicitly specifying which of these are applied. Have a look at the source code of this page to understand how this is done.
What does this mean in the real world?
There are many beautiful and interesting fonts that can improve aesthetics and increase visual variety on the web. Just as I am sometimes stunned by beautiful book designs, I want to be overwhelmed by beautiful web pages. And, I don't want those beautiful pages to be made up of background images.