I totally agree with you RMcC. Tables definitely has it's uses. When I just started with my portfolio I kept thinking how I can structure all the content the way I want to without using any tables. I drove myself crazy. Maybe I'm just too much of a novice at this stage, but I find it much simpler creating a table for "simple" things like, as you said form content, than struggling with margins and what not.
I also agree though that using a table to create the whole page layout would actually be more difficult than using css.