Honestly I don't think this question is really about "to table or not to table" The question is whether you friend would find value spending the time now to le

Honestly I don't think this question is really about "to table or not to table" The question is whether you friend would find value spending the time now to learn how to use CSS properly despite its quirks. If he's going to be maintaining this site and others for a long period of time then he should probably eat the learning curve and learn CSS now. If its a one off project with little maintenance then do what's easier.