Wouldn't table markup be the correct semantic designator for tabular data? Plus the plugins that work with tables, the ease of copying tables from the screen to spreadsheets, that screen readers know what tables are, etc.
Yeah, I'm not saying don't use tables. Do use tables, they're great for accessibility, but don't feel tied to using table layout; CSS has some great alternatives now that preserve the HTML structure of the table, but display it differently.