Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I'd have to assume anyone using that on a project I was paying them for really was trying to be funny. I mean, really, take a look at this: https://github.com/tachyons-css/tachyons-visibility
I used and am using this in production. So are others. It works really really well. Here's the rational: http://mrmrs.io/writing/2016/03/24/scalable-css/
You can name your magic numbers/RGB values. You can move your shared behaviour into mixins. You can stop using float for god's sake - it's 2016, we have flexbox now (OK, so that's not related to preprocessors, but it's still true).
Sure, if it's a quick hack or something you're throwing together for personal reasons, use whatever mixture of inline-styles, "visually semantic" classes, and table layout goes fastest for you. But if the point is "scalability" (In the sense of size of team working together), then this halfway point between semantic classes and inline styles is definitely not the right way to achieve it.