Fun fact: you're commenting on a site that uses tables for layout. It's not an unholy mess though, as it doesn't have sidebars or other really complicated stuff.
"heavy use of tables". I ran into a script once that took a picture as input and output a massive HTML table with a cell for each pixel and a background color. "Pure html" images without CSS or base64.
You can fully use amazon still with javascript disabled. The site even looks nearly the same but it doesn’t spin your laptops fans rendering kindle unlimited ads on the home page.
They seem strange but navigation is usually absolutely clear and they are lightening fast.