Michael Curtis Napier wrote:

>You have to remember that we are just trying to finalize the layout
>right now. The table vs div and the font issues can all be done later.
>  
>
Sorry, I guess it's out of habit for me that makes it hard to 
concentrate on layout alone at start. I usually work by transforming a 
well structured highly accessible plaintext-site into something that 
looks pretty on a graphical display.
Thus layout first while adding underlying markup/CSS/accessibility 
afterwards to me just feels a little bit like trying to make an omelet 
before breaking the eggs.

To some extent doing layout before markup also means having to do at 
least twice the work to reach your target designs look & feel since once 
it looks like how you want to have it you have to tear it all down again 
and almost start from scratch again to merge in good 
accessibility/behaviour and recreate the look that was evolved ontop of 
another underlying structure.

Also, there is a definite risk of locking/limiting yourself into a 
underlying design that is clumsy and aqward to make accessible when you 
are finalizing layout before leting loose the full power of tableless 
CSS controlled design.

In any case, I'll try to write my thoughts down for now and bring them 
up again once we reach that point on the todolist if the rest of you 
prefer the "Layout before Markup" approach. :)
I'll just keep my fingers crossed that a "final layout" is not 
compleatly set in stone by the time we reach the CSS & Markup stage so 
it becomes too much of an obstacle to also getting the site accessible 
and well behaved.

Regards /Stefan Huszics