I think the issue, in terms of CSS being bad for layout, is that it tries to treat the logical structure of the document as the layout structure. If there were

I think the issue, in terms of CSS being bad for layout, is that it tries to treat the logical structure of the document as the layout structure. If there were a way to restructure the document and then apply CSS to it a lot of things would get a lot easier and separation of content and presentation could be more realistic. XSLT was interesting in providing some of this kind of restructuring power, but was far too heavyweight for pure layout manipulation. Of course, this is also what flexbox tries to do and I think we'll be groaning about its lack of relative power in this area in the future when it's more established. It feels like a bandaid to me.