Could lists be written as a series of row elements instead of as a series of column elements?

Several lists on this site (such as the advanced-search-"as a list", simple search, or author's-other-works) are organized as a series of column elements, rather than a series of row elements (with column elements inside them).

This makes scripts/style changes to the site much more difficult to implement.

For example, I'd like to implement a row highlighting mechanic so that whichever row my mouse is on gets highlighted. I was able to do this relatively easily before the redesign with a css modification to change the background color on hovered rows. Now, this is considerably more difficult, because I have to modify sibling elements on hover (and css appears to only support getting the next element, not the previous one).

Example Advanced Search List Mode Table (Current)
////////////////////////
Table
--| col-6
--| col-4
--| col-1
--| col-1
--| col-6 alt
--| col-4 alt
--| col-1 alt
--| col-1 alt
...

Example Advanced Search List Mode (Proposed)
////////////////////////
Table
--| tableRow
--|--| col-6
--|--| col-4
--|--| col-1
--|--| col-1
--| tableRow alt
--|--| col-6
--|--| col-4
--|--| col-1
--|--| col-1
...

EDIT: I was also able to implement this row highlighting mechanical very easily on the main reading list page, because that table IS organized as a series of rows instead of column elements. All I had to do was this:

.lrow:hover {
background: #ddd !important
}

And it would highlight any row my mouse was hovering over.

Yea, I plan to change these. I've had a few suggestions--from changing back to tables, to using display: table. Your idea adds in another dimension. I understand the need.

Thank you for the suggestion. Hopefully I can get it changed this weekend.