Why use tables to structure your layout?

Question

Looking at the source code for Stack Overflow, I noticed they have used tables and inline CSS quite a bit, also something I found odd was use of inline table attribute forma

Answer 1

My thougths would be they went with table because (apart from the argument table vs css)

• They needed to get the functionality get out rolled quickly to have an opinion
• After all this is just the public beta.
• They were experimenting with ASP.NET MVC more and layout issues less
• SO is all about programming questions and answers and at the end that what matters.
• SO is all about recognizing the contributors by rewarding points and badges which it does quite decently (this may also be a controversial topic).
• and so on....