Why use anything else when you have DIV tags?

So I am looking at other people's HTML, CSS and JavaScript at my new job.

And I am noticing cool things, like lots of use of CSS positioning, AJAX, and all that Web 2.0 style stuff.

Only problem is, people seem to have forgotten that there are other tags in HTML besides DIV tags. Its great that we are using lots of CSS to place elements and style them, but have we all forgotten that HTML tags actually serve a purpose?

Tags are meant to give structural information to your data, and CSS is meant to give it a visual look.

So if you've got a table of data to display, why are you using a bunch of nested (or even not nested) div tags instead of, gee, the TABLE element? If you have a list of items, why are you using div tags instead of the UL and LI elements?

Since the catching on of CSS positioning, it seems like everybody thinks tables are evil, because for a long time people used them for getting a visual look and not for tabular data display. But they are not evil. They're just tables. That's like saying hammers are evil because the screw driver was invented and now we don't have to hammer our screws in.

Duh?