The strength of CSS layouts is flexibility. Yes, you need to fiddle a bit with it to make it all work, but the majority of the stuff is done in an external CSS

The strength of CSS layouts is flexibility. Yes, you need to fiddle a bit with it to make it all work, but the majority of the stuff is done in an external CSS file. Redesigning parts of a CSS site is much easier than with a table -- indeed it is almost impossible with a table in some cases because it is so static. With CSS you can change positioning and float it in another direction for example. A lot of repositioning can be done with absolute positioning, though floats are more ideal for the "core" structure. I think the example provided in the article is good though. CSS layouts should be so trivial to do, and it's a shame they're not. Going back to tables doesn't come without a cost however.