I mean this just proves yet again that CSS is a convoluted mess not suited to use as a styling language. Its only merits are that it has been around for a long time and all browser support it.
I'd much rather use a proper grid layout with subgrids and local/global co-ords same as game dev and in fact I've always wondered if I can just write a web lib that uses webgl to render the page instead. Problem is DOM engines are just too efficient compared to recreating it all myself in js/webgl.