True, maintainability is what really matters in big projects - to us. But (too) often, it's the people who don't have to maintain it who decide on deadlines, and although I know that deadlines are at their best when they woosh past you, IRL it's not always that easy. Deadlines are there to be kept, or else you're out.

I don't like this, either, and Ade, you know what site I'm talking about, and that I hate it as much as you did. But, I just had to program a whole new site of 16 pages (which is only the German version, French and Italian follow) in just under a week - and of course I got the last content one day before the site had to be up and running. And I did it all in writing the code by hand. But while fitting tables so that the stuff looks right, I sometimes almost gave in to temptation to re-install Dreamweaver and use it for that. (I didn't, and it's all done now - phew!)

There's one more thing to say in favour of writing your own code: Applications like Dreamweaver or Adobe GoLive create tons of redundant code, and that makes file sizes go up. By writing your own code and keeping it clear, simple and to the point, you can keep file size down - and hence improve download time and attractivity (is that the word?) of your site.

--cs