Fun fact: Hacker News itself is structured predominantly with tables. Every comment/thread creates a new table nested within the context of its parent's table. It's tables all the way down.
Tables does not render reliably across platforms. This is because the algorithm for sizing columns and cells was never standardized.
Back when tables were the only tool available for layout, professionals combined tables with 1x1 pixel transparent gifs which could be scaled to force cells to have a fixed size.
I guess you could argue that tables combined with spacer-gifs are reliable. But solution exists which are just as reliable, much easier to use, and better for accessibility.
> It is hard to track down where a style is coming from.
This is an orthogonal concern. If you don't like CSS inheritance and cascade, you can just use style attributes directly on elements. I believe Tailwind uses a similar approach through class attributes.