Yeah, I have no idea why the strong stance. It seems to be so strongly rooted in a minimalist perspective. If you want to not have zebra striping on by default, I may be okay with that if you have it on during hover. In this paradigm I also want it both directions like a giant +.

Another thing not discussed is the problem with big tables. If you have to scroll at all, you lose the headers and "label" in column A. I like it when things scroll only the "data" part but leave these fixed and always visible. It would also be interesting to see a replication of the header as a footer and an additional column Z that duplicated column. This helps you not have to move your eyes back and forth as you look at the data and scroll around.