W3C has been hashing out new grid-based specs for quite some time now, because as admitted in the Grid Layout Module working draft, "As websites evolved... floats, were not necessarily well suited for application layout."
Dozens & dozens of CSS grid systems have emerged, but without retooling the internals of the browser's layout engine and adding new CSS language features, such attempts retain the flaws of CSS float & will taint content semantics.
But, of course, the W3C's grid-based efforts is not without flaws, see:
Thanks for mentioning this. I had peeked at those specs, proposals. Looks like a CSS version of GridBagLayout. No mention of canonical grids. (See my other comment.)
http://www.w3.org/TR/css-grid-1/#background
Dozens & dozens of CSS grid systems have emerged, but without retooling the internals of the browser's layout engine and adding new CSS language features, such attempts retain the flaws of CSS float & will taint content semantics.
But, of course, the W3C's grid-based efforts is not without flaws, see:
http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/rethinking-css-grids