uh, yeah - welcome to the real world. I just finished a lenghty re-design where i was 100% dedicated to not using tables for layout. I require header, 3 column with left and right column fixed width, center column fluid, and footer, with minimum page height to be the browser window and columns being full height. I couldnt cut it, so i hired a CSS expert - the guy was really good, but still the layout failed half the test cases. (we are not writing some blog, we are writing a for-pay publishing platform. our test cases are all based on real usage scenarios). When asking for advice, the advice was either "do it so and so" which is what we were already doing, or, my personal favorite, "why do you need this layout, it sucks".
Whenever i hear the last argument, in whatever context, I know that the technical approach i chose will not be able to cut it, and here are the "cover up" brigade.
Throughout this ordeal, our template pages became increasingly incomprehensible and difficult to code with. DIV's nested to stupid levels, etc.
I made the decision to swap to tables for our layout. It took me about 30 minutes to effect this change, and stuff Just Works(tm).
There are serious and real problems with CSS layouts, and unless these are adressed, tables will continue to see use, especially by people that have a job to finish. My boss doesnt care how i do the site layout, he trusts me to make the right decisions. part of that decision tree is to ensure that i strike a balance that involves cost and time to market somewhere.