[jsiarto]

Tables are for tabular data--designing with HTML/CSS isn't perfect, but using tables for layout is an even less-elegant solution. It leads to a markup soup of nested tags and tables and difficult-to-maintain codebase. Good design and good markup go hand-in-hand and often you need to strike a balance between flashy visual design and solid underlying structure. This is also why visual designers should understand how their designs get implemented in HTML and CSS--it will create a restraint and limit the amount of "hacks" you have to do to make a design work.

Also remember that not everyone views the web in a browser. Having well structured markup helps those that use screen readers or alternate methods of browsing the web.

[bonaldi]

"Good design and good markup go hand-in-hand"

I don't think this is true any more than "good print design and good postscript go hand-in-hand".

I don't think tables are the right way either, but they're too often the pragmatic way until CSS gets dramatically more expressive.

The "restraint" you're talking about is not something designers should have to accept —- not least because CSS appears to be being developed with insufficient concern for what designers would actually like to be able to do. If it wasn't, vertical alignment would have arrived long ago.