Web design has taken some major leaps in the past decade. One of the biggest is the adoption of CSS for styling. In simple terms, CSS allows you to style consistent elements throughout your website (links, titles, etc.) through a central document rather than through applying the style to each instance of the element. 

Now there are plans for new CSS modules that would provide grid and template layout techniques directly through CSS. True that this can be done currently through template files, but incorporating the feature into CSS would further separate the design layer from the backend of websites. This would put more control in designers' hands and free up your programmers to deal with functional issues. Very exciting.