People use CSS and <div>
Have a look at *www.deitydarshan.com. I have *not* used tables for laying out pages. Of course, if there is some tabular data, then use of tables is recommended. But tables should not be used for laying out pages. Additionally, if its some very simple things, then use tables. You have to select the right thing for a given situation.
Using nested tables bloat your pages. Using CSS and <div> makes them smaller and easier to maintain. What code you will see in the above site is what PHP generated. Actual code is far shorter and compact.
Header, footer, navigation, etc. are all genrated with php functions.
Have a look following links:
*www.hotdesign.com/seybold/
*www.dmag.org.uk/resources/design_articles/cssvtablesforlayout.asp
*www.andybudd.com/archives/2004/05/an_objective_look_at_table_based_vs_css_based_design/
*www.htmlite.com/SD008.php
Google will throw up many more links. I searched for "tables vs css" which gave me these links.