"CSS is floating DIV tags, that's it."
The author ought to take the time to discover why tables are not used for anything but data display by the so-called "purists". CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet not for some raging group of evangelists pushing the "right" way to do something. The movement that utilizes this tool is about implementing standards, following rules, and building a more semantic web. DIV is not semantic. Regardless of if you are a designer or developer, first understand XHTML/HTML... certainly before you write about it.
Beyond that, why let the big guys be your standard. iGoogle is no modern marvel of web design or development. I'm guessing the same guy who built the backend of Google finance was tasked with the front; logically he/she would approach that in the fastest way they know. Also note that tables are intended for data. What's finance? Data. They'd better be using tables... just not for layout.
Yes. Yes, it does count as research. When you see people who have done what you want to do, looking at how they did it is likely to guide you in how you should do it. That doesn't always work, but it's a damn fine start.
Edit: He also managed to not even properly conduct this simplistic research considering that many of the tables used on the sites were used correctly, e.g. for tabular data.
css layouts can sort of cope if you specify everything in pixels. For fluid layouts they just don't work at all. The amount of hacks and hoops to jump through is just ridiculous waste of time when tables do the layout without any fuss at all.
Do you think the 'float' 'clear' properties in css are nice? To me they are an ugly inadequate hack at trying to specify layout.
Just trying to get a div to vertical-align center is enough to drive anyone crazy.
Please, we all came to here to escape individuals like yourself.
If big sites do it, it must be okay!
If I can't be bothered to do proper research to learn why one should not use technique X, the reasons must be trivial and stupid!
If I am too lazy to learn how to do something properly, I must justify doing it improperly somehow!
------
I haven't used tables for page layout in roughly a decade. I think I used a table improperly for the first time since then last week, when I was laying out a form and couldn't get it to render consistently after a Javascript update. I don't consider this the end of the world, nor do I take it to mean that CSS is unnecessary and I'm going to go back to pretending it's 1999.
The problem with sensationalist bullshit like this article is people will read it and form an opinion based on it, without doing their own research. Do your own research (and looking at the table counts of Alexa Top 100 sites doesn't fucking count as research, FYI). Learn the real reasons why you shouldn't use tables for layout (or why to adhere to various other web standards). If you don't find those reasons compelling enough to switch, then do whatever the hell you want -- at least you know why you're doing it.
Learn that if you choose to use the proper methods, all the layouts have already been made for you, so you can be as incompetent as you'd like and still layout a page better than Google (and yes, Google are complete shit bags when it comes to adhering to Web Standards. Thankfully, what Google does should be irrelevant to you!) Finally, at the end of the day, just because you use tables occasionally doesn't magically mean CSS IS DEAD. I can't think of a sufficiently funny metaphor for this obvious fact because I am too god damn pissed off.