I think the tables he chose were examples of bad table design rather than anything inherently wrong with using tables per se. It would have been more insightful

I think the tables he chose were examples of bad table design rather than anything inherently wrong with using tables per se. It would have been more insightful had a better table example been used followed by a the new representation with the exact same data. This would have made it easier to assess the relative strengths of each approach. I don't know the data very well, but I think the table could be improved by doing the following: Remove the columns with only one value and make part of the header or footer. For the columns where nearly all of the values are identical, a light highlight on the different values followed by a slight graying of the common value would have worked. A small space could have been added to the bottom of every fifth row to make it easier to track horizontally. The far right columns could have been aligned so that the numbers on either side of slash lined up with the ones above or below.