I use something that is a real staple in the directing world. It's called a dance floor. You lay it down so that it's so smooth you can roll around, and you can put furniture on top of it. It's seamless and you don't see it.
Because the competitive landscape of the web is such that the site which looks and works best gets the most traffic, developers and designers put a premium on the presentation of that content and let structural markup take a back seat.
His lordship may compel us to be equal upstairs, but there will never be equality in the servants' hall.