Have you had more positive experiences with any native alternative? My experience with em has generally been that they work well until you want to customize things.
I think people tend to seriously underestimate the complexity involved in dealing with layout and styles. CSS has some poor defaults and plenty of quirks, but it's also incredibly powerful and not that difficult if you bother taking the time to learn it properly. You are struggling because you have not learned to use the tool correctly.
Try implementing a few basic layout algorithms as a weekend project. I believe it'll change your view of CSS.
So true. I looked at implementing some layout algorithms in PDF pages for a project I was working on; eventually realized I should just use the standard elements in the library I was using and forget about anything custom because otherwise I'd be making a separate product...
I think people tend to seriously underestimate the complexity involved in dealing with layout and styles. CSS has some poor defaults and plenty of quirks, but it's also incredibly powerful and not that difficult if you bother taking the time to learn it properly. You are struggling because you have not learned to use the tool correctly.
Try implementing a few basic layout algorithms as a weekend project. I believe it'll change your view of CSS.