I really don't get why people feel the need to reinvent row/column structures when there's a more reliable, better option built into every browser for the past decade.
"Tables are for tabular data" just strikes me as ego, and while I've seen a ton of flaky work-arounds with DIVs, I've rarely seen one that worked well and didn't force needless compromises (extra white-space for dynamic content to ensure you aren't bitten by overflow issues or have to clip content to fit the design).
There's a tool that does the job. It works in every browser that's ever mattered. It does it most simply with the least side-effects. It uses about the same amount of "non semantic" markup (.row and .col are separating presentation/layout? That's a weird definition of the phrase). It's reliable, it's predictable, it doesn't come with side-effects (let me just update my global .row class here and, d'oh, I've broken half the site because I focused on minimizing styles rather than coding defensively keeping likely client requests for tweaks in mind).
Build a whole site out of tables? No thanks. Use tables for dynamic content of variable height that needs to be maintained in rows and columns? To do anything else doesn't serve the interests of the client or your own business.
Redeveloping tables with divs and .row/.col classes just to avoid using an element called "table". One of my greatest frustrations with designers.
It's not fun to have to go in and fix people's shoddy work they spent days not getting right just because they couldn't put the business ahead of their ego.
If you really must avoid tables for whatever reason, lists are almost always a better choice.
I do agree with the spirit of this comment though. CSS Frameworks are the Microsoft Frontpage of modern web design.