[recursive]

> why use tables when you can use display:table, CSS Flexbox or CSS Grid?

The benefit would be that the author can understand how to use it better.

[jraph]

This seems to fall under the unconvincing "I don't really want to learn this stuff". This seems to be the only reason people are tables for layouts today.

[recursive]

People doing this are probably not interested in the rhetorical efficacy of the justification. In other words it probably doesn't matter whether you find it convincing.