killing idle instances

Running PostgreSQL 7.2.1 on RedHat Linux 7.2.

A few nights ago, I was in the middle of building a new
table when I noticed that there were a lot of idle instances
and my table was waiting to be built (I believe the message
statement was WAITING or the like).

After considering the urgency of the tables' need to exist
before morning, I killed the idle instances and my process
began to function normally.

I am looking at the log file for PG and see a lot of 'BackendStartup:
forked pid=### socket=XXX' messages and I wonder if I
did the right thing.

My question: Should I *not* kill idle processes even though they
my interfere with building / modifying tables? What are the
ramifications for such an act?

Thanks!

-X