And as far as hours wasted, having coded both ways, and originally viewing css as stupid and more work, I can now code a website in half the time using it than tables.
In fact, when I'm just hacking something quick, it's great not to bother with any layout at all and just come back to it when I have the time. You can't do that with tables.
A quick rewrite took care of that too. HTML is an output format, not a language.
CSS with semantic HTML achieves this, embedded presentation does not.
The hell it does... Not to mention that separating the two is such a futile waste of time in so many cases.
If you are a programmer on a large site you won't touch the design. It will be done by a skilled designer, or designing firm. You won't care how its done whatsoever.
There is a lot more to say here...but basically you won't touch the design. Or want to. Or care how its done :)
The reality has always been quite different.
At least churning out valid XHTML+CSS from Photoshop designs has now become a commodity business: http://onwebapps.com/39-photoshop-psd-to-xhtml-css-services/
That's the biggest lie of them all. And maintenance? No one does that, they do re-writes. How many hours have I wasted on this joke of not using tables?