Pipe Dream: Kill tables for layout

I know this is a pipe dream; it would take a lot of work, but ideally I'd like to see tables used for layout replaced with divs and CSS controls.

Here's the issue: tables take a lot longer to render in a browser, esp. if they are nested, which they are on pages such as category pages, etc.

On the other hand, styling divs can be very challenging for most folks when it comes to the spacial aspects of margins, borders, padding, and width definitions. Things can easily fly apart for any but the most experienced designers.

But then again, page load time is an issue with both end-users and Google's algorithm.