If you're going to use CSS to do it you might as well do it correctly and not use tables at all. Tables are for tabular data, not for layout. A pretty good rule of thumb when creating them is to ask yourself "Would this make sense if I put it into Excel?"
Frames may be misunderstood by some, but they're loathed for good reason. They break printing, semantics, back/forward-button flow, hyperlinking, and a few other things. I'd actually be quite interested in hearing what valid reason they do have for existing (and, in fact, have been eliminated in XHTML strict DTDs and exist only in the transitionals).
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