I would have agreed with you maybe 2-3 years ago from a pragmatic standpoint, but the most compelling reason now for not using tables for layout is that they're

I would have agreed with you maybe 2-3 years ago from a pragmatic standpoint, but the most compelling reason now for not using tables for layout is that they're not compatible with responsive web design. Table cells don't stack and can't be reconfigured like block-level elements. You can get away with using "display: table-cell;" and the like inside components that are independent of responsive requirements, though.