there's misconceptions that throws people off:
a) the skill and difficulty in usine css driven website lies in how to use the language, not how to write it. css is the simplest language to "learn" it's learning to use it properly that's trickier because like everything else, there's more than one way to do something. that can only be solved through experimentation.

b) crappy code is crappy code. lots of people think if it validates, it's perfect code, which is far from true. all the validator does is check to make sure you've got your slashes in there. you could use a seperate div/span tag for every word in a sentence. as long as you close the ones you open, w3 will say you've got valid code... is it any good? hell no. the validator is over praised and it isn't used properly.

people make the language look like it's hard to understand, which is completely false and like the validator is a check up to make sure you're coding is as effecient as it can be which is also false.