CSS was clearly designed with typography and text layout in mind - and it works wonderfully for that purpose. But it was not created flexibly enough to be well suited for anything else. You CAN make graphical interfaces with it (and we do, because we have to). But it's all hacks.
I think the browser inconsistencies are as frustrating as they are because doing seemingly "simple" things in CSS requires using advanced CSS features in boundary-pushing ways (this wonderful arrow box app is a perfect example). Browser support has to be EXCELLENT before certain simple layout things are even possible. Imagine a CSS that supported things like "vertical-align: center". That's a CSS that wouldn't NEED to have its boundaries pushed to the limits and the rough edges of browsers wouldn't rankle nearly so much.
It never ceases to amaze me how quickly people jump to defend CSS as if any criticisms imply that the author thinks we'd be better off back in the days of deeply nested tables. But the sad fact of the matter is that some things really were easier and more dependable (and in some cases, WAY more so) with tables.
