CSS will never make tables go away. WYSIWYG development tools will not produce perfect code in the near future. Possibly never. Clients don’t give a crap about any of this, and only want to know that the site looks correct and works in their browser and the browser of anyone attempting to give them money. Period. End of story. If hacked code gives them what they want, they give us money. If pure, compliant code doesn’t act the same in all browsers (and it doesn’t) they will take their money and give it to someone else. Again, end of story.

Another thing - I’ve been noticing a trend in the CSS and webdesign discussion boards to bash the new breed of CSS only layouts as cookie cutter-ish and boring. And I have to admit, the *pure* CSS layouts aren’t moving too far from ALA, Blue Robot, and
Glish. However, when combined with tables and frames (horrors!) you end up with some very nice looking, pretty flexible sites. Evolt comes to mind. A lot of folks are jumping on the idea that suddenly, we have to make the decision to either use CSS for *everything* (formatting, effects, positioning) or chuck it out completely, ’cause the WYSIWYG editors won’t work well with it.

Just ’cause you discovered acrylics, does that mean you have to turn your back forever on oils and watercolors?

I like a mixed media approach, myself.

And on the subject of “boring, cookie cutter CSS sites” - I don’t think they’re boring at all. Text is important on these sites. I like that. Formatting and layout become secondary to the actual words on the page. Why should this be such a bad thing?