IIRC that technique only works with fixed heights so it is useless for most layout scenarios, and is why I specified "dynamic" in my comment.
CSS is perfectly fine for fixed size layouts but it completely sucks for dynamic ones, especially if you want to mix fixed and dynamic elements. Tables OTOH handle these layout scenarios simply, concisely and without hacks.
Fixed widths and heights....it is amazing that [as it seems] no one in the entire w3c or building the browsers know people that write applications for multiple languages, different directional settings (right-to-left vs left-to-right), and even verticalization (replacing terms within the product depending on the customer). Things that are trivial in native applications back in the early 90s still can't be done easily in 2014. Honestly, it is pathetic.
Given that HTML was never designed to be an application development language is that surprising ?. Talk about banging a square peg into a round hole!!!
Javascript was never intended for building large applications, but with the JIT-improvements of the last years, it works.
CSS is really botched and holding us back at this point. Fortunately it is slowly improving (eg. * { box-sizing: border-box } and the flex-box), but still...
