Actually this has been asked here before and pg himself did answer the question [1] (you may have to scroll a little to see pg's response). pg also argues in one of his essays [2] that tables are the (lisp) lists of html, being very dynamic and flexible which is perfect for explanatory programming despite being unclear (in its purpose/structure) sometimes.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=100460 [2] http://paulgraham.com/arc0.html