RE: revisiting advice in HTML on tables used for layout

So, my understanding from my WCAG work is that most screen readers are able to handle layout tables pretty well, and have been for some time.  But, to be honest, I haven't looked at it extensively in several years.  I know it's semantically incorrect, but is it really a problem for users?  Maybe check with WCAG?

From: Steve Faulkner [mailto:faulkner.steve@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 1:59 AM
To: HTMLWG WG
Subject: revisiting advice in HTML on tables used for layout

currently the HTML spec says:

"Tables should not be used as layout aids. Historically, many Web authors have tables in HTML as a way to control their page layout making it difficult to extract tabular data from such documents. In particular, users of accessibility tools, like screen readers, are likely to find it very difficult to navigate pages with tables used for layout. If a table is to be used for layout it must be marked with the attribute role="presentation" for a user agent to properly represent the table to an assistive technology and to properly convey the intent of the author to tools that wish to extract tabular data from the document.
Note:There are a variety of alternatives to using HTML tables for layout, primarily using CSS positioning and the CSS table model. [CSS]"
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/tabular-data.html#the-table-element
Note the normative SHOULD NOT in the first sentence.
The spec text above is based on a decision by the HTML WG [1]
I am not proposing to change the normative aspect of the decision, but would like to expand and strengthen the informative text to make it clearer that the use of layout tables is NOT RECOMMENDED and provide fuller explanations of the negative consequences of layout tables.
[1]http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011Mar/0245.html
what do others think?

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Regards

SteveF
HTML 5.1<http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>