www.duhaime.org - 100% css, fluid center, top to bottom color in sidebars, A grade browsers supported including mobile IE.

I actually don't like the design due to poor usability performance.  None the less, the method I used is covered at AListApart.com.  There are also other methods including repeating background images etc.

Because of this template and others like it, design time is not that long.  Don't reinvent the wheel, learn from people like Yahoo! As a portion of design time, CSS takes about >10% including typeface and per-page customizations.  I'm using grids now and the time has been cut again. Two years ago I would have agree that the time factor made CSS design more expensive.  It is just not true any more.  All sites I produce in DNN are 100% CSS. 

Also, having developed websites for close to 10 years, tables do not save time in the long run.  They perpetuate a mind set that design is integrated with or part of HTML.  Down the road, those small integrations mean sites have to be entirely redesigned from code out to fit a new style.  That need, and the added time it takes, far outway the speed of wrting a simple table.

Take for instance the DNN event module.  It is heavily invested in tables layouts and server controled design.  The events calenader is one of the most complained components I in terms of bad look and feel.  The best I was able to do (http://www.bearmountain.ca/Home/ResortEvents/EventsCalendar.aspx ) still has to deal with ugly event pages and ugly event lists.  So ugly that BMR made me post the events seperately on straight up tabs to have any sort of branding! now to post an event, we actually use three separate tools. It is a total hack and the most embarrassing part of the site IMHO. I'm dying to replace the whole lot with a proper module based on design abstraction.

My recommendation, sign up for http://north08.webdirections.org/, or the like, and see why the brightest minds in web design are strict CSS designers.