Yes, CSS should not be used for layouts...

  <div id="container">
    <div id="top">
      Top
    </div>
    <div id="leftnav">
      Left
    </div>
    <div id="rightnav">
      Right
    </div>
    <div id="content">
      <h1>Center</h1>
    </div>
    <div id="footer">
      Bottom
    </div>
  </div>
  

However, like Ron Garret suggests, tables are a suitable alternative: Correct layout semantics, but poor (not incorrect, but poor) markup semantics.

  <table class="demo1">
    <tr><td class="shaded" colspan="3">Top</td></tr>
    <tr>
      <td class="left">Left</td>
      <td class="center">
        <h1>Center</h1>
      </td>
      <td>Right</td>
    </tr>
    <tr><td class="shaded" colspan="3">Bottom</td></tr>
  </table>
  

One more approach I'd like to add. You can make <div> elements behave like Tables. Correct layout semantics, intuitive HTML layout, and better markup semantics. This example uses the table and table-cell display properties which makes elements behave like a table element.

Find out more about the table visual formatting model. Another introduction to display:table

  <div id="table">
    <div class="top shaded">Top</div>
    <div class="main">
      <div class="left cell">Left</div>
      <div class="center cell">
        <h1>Center</h1>
      </div>
      <div class="right cell">Right</div>
    </div>
    <div class="footer shaded">Bottom</div>
  </div>
  

You'll notice--if you examine the source to this page--that the layout and CSS techniques for the last two examples are almost identical. My answer to "which one should I use" is "it depends". There's no right answer and usually more than one way to design the layout of a page, as I've demonstrated here.

This technique has been tested on Safari 3, Opera 9.6, and Firefox 3. IE8 allegedly has support, while IE6 likely doesn't.