More ambitious macro packages might be helpful to you for more difficult applications.
Many tables are homogenous, i.e., all the entries are semantically the same.
The arrangement into columns is to save space on the page, not to encode different meanings. In this kind of the table, it is useful to have the column breaks chosen automatically, so that you can add or delete entries without worrying about the column breaks. So you can adjust the position of the table on the page by assignments to these parameters, probably inside a group. Usually, the table is preceded by some explanatory text. You wouldn't want a page break to occur after the text and before the table, so Eplain sets it to 10000 .