Is it still wrong to do navigation first, content later websites?

Question

I know all the classical SEO articles have a chapter about how important it is to have the content before anything else (like navigation), and recommends us to implement the craziest CSS hacks, just to be sure that our content is before anything else.

On the other hand I'd really like to start using grid systems for my new project, and the grid system I like doesn't support reverse order, like how 960.gs does. So it means that my HTML needs to have a structure like this:

<div header>
<div vertical-nav>
<div middle>
  <div horizontal-nav>
  <div content>
</div>
<div footer>

My question is that is Google really that stupid not to figure out things like this? I mean that company has maybe the most intelligent algorithms on Earth... Do we really need to hack our websites just because we think it makes it easier for Google to read it? I'd naturally think that good meta tags, titles and URLs are much more important; but I'm not an expert on this field.

Does a website with the structure above could get good SEO results, supposing meta, title and URL is implemented well?

Answer 1

No one will ever prove difinitively one way or the other, and Google likely won't tell, but SEO is pretty much voodoo once you get beyond the basics.

Just make sure you have an interesting website that will gain organic deep links, and your PR will rise.

Links and keyword density/keyword research are the most important SEO tips. If you're vying for such a hotly contested keyword that you need to worry about micro optimizations, maybe you should work your way down the long tail a little bit (freelance brickmason in miami rather than freelance brickmason)?