Frames are extremely effective, when used properly. Take a look at
titanrobotics.net for example, we use frames, but the website dosn't look bad (unless of course you are running something under 1024 x 768 resolution, but these days, few people actually do, and they don't deserve to see our site anyway
)
Tables are useful for websites where all the content is already decided on. However, say that you wanted to add a navigation item to a 25 page website... This means you would need to change 25 pages.
I would never do a professional website with everchanging content using anything else than frames.
PS: I do know about the include tag in coldfusion, asp, and php, but I have found it to be quite unreliable for table sites.