I'm trying to answer the age-old question of which is better: tables or css?  Of course this time I want to answer it for DNN.  My first question is has anybody done a DNN skin that is mostly or entirely css?  Is it possible?  What are some of the complications of one versus the other?

Another concern of mine is the speed of download, which would be faster?  It seems to me that css would be faster because there could be a lot less code to download without all of those table-related tags.  Am I correct in thinking that?

Thanks much,|
Brent

Yes, CSS is much better for layout than tables. And yes it is entirely possible. I believe in using one table to hold it all together though. With dynamic content your CSS based design can get messed up.  

Not only that, but most modules also use tables that you have no control over, so even if you do have a tabless skin, you are most likely not going to have all your pages without tables.

You can also check out my site for another example of CSS based design http://www.snapsis.com

I would also add one caveat to whether CSS or tables are better: it depends on your design.  Some designs lend themselves better to CSS and some just are not possible in pure CSS without jumping through a lot of hoops to make the design work properly in all browsers.  While CSS is capable of a lot, it also has a lot of Shortcomings which are exacerbated by the current bugs and lack of adherence to the standards by the various browser vendors.  It does not take long in CSS to reach a point where you are relying on a bunch of hacks just to get your design to work.  John's approach is the one I have used in the past where I started with a CSS based design and then sparingly used tables just to make it all work well within the dynamic environment of DotNetNuke.