[stevenicr]

bad markup meant lots of things. frontpage seemed to add tons of extra fluff in the code. Other editors for a while used 1pixel cleargifs to space and align all the elements on the page. That added a lot of extra code just to move over 42 pixels and down 133 for every element.

Then using tables for layouts was better. Cutting graphics for rounded corners worked. The web purists kept posting how bad it was, web visitors never cared.

Once monitors were less standardized (more than just 800 px wide and 1024) - and mobile became a thing- the web purists really pushed to do layout with css only - and they spend years posting about hacks and recreating.. table layout called something else.

Either way lots of extra code that is certainly not needed if using the modern grid css tagging...

I still preferred the table layouts of years past, though I like the new tiny code that is needed for grid, the bloated code of the 90s and 00s is nothing compared to all the hi rez images, video and javascript bloat these days.