This is so off base it's funny. The whole point of leaving tables has very little to do with semantic markup. We front-end developers hate having to adjust the

This is so off base it's funny. The whole point of leaving tables has very little to do with semantic markup. We front-end developers hate having to adjust the rowspans, column spans, etc. because one small bit of content needs to be shifted or added. By freeing yourself from the grid (in terms of markup not design), you can nimbly alter a site's layout.