This debate is endless. Simply put, there is no clear answer. Clearly, from what you've stated, CSS is not your forte. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact

This debate is endless. Simply put, there is no clear answer. Clearly, from what you've stated, CSS is not your forte. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, there was a time that I felt exactly like you. Now however, I find CSS/tableless html easier, faster and cleaner overall. I use it exclusively for general presentation. It really shines when I need to fix websites after the fact, or two clients want different presentations of the same code/datasets. It's a lot of fun to limit presentation to 2-3 files, rather than your entire codebase. That said, what's your motivation here? Do you believe/recognize the benefits of CSS, or are you just feeling guilty because "all the cool kids are doing it"? If the former is your thinking, you have to realize that you are in learning mode. Of course it's going to be harder. You're comparing a learning state to a mastered state. Riding a bicycle is a lot harder if all you've done is ride tricycles. It says nothing though about whether learning to ride a bike is beneficial to you or worth the time and effort. If you can see that moving to CSS layouts would have noticeable impact on your production, tough it out, it gets easier I swear. If you can't see any benefit to switching, then don't.