A basic issue in the control of linear time-invariant plants is the effect of neglected high-frequency dynamics on the performance, in particular on the closed-loop stability, of the control system. In this paper, the robustness of various output feedback control designs, based on a reduced-order model with neglected high-frequency dynamics, is investigated using singular perturbation techniques. A general robust design rule is to avoid static output feedback for systems with unmodelled high-frequency dynamics. From a frequency-domain standpoint, the robust design rule is to avoid closing high-frequency plant loops by using strictly proper controllers or controllers with a low-pass filtering property.