The WOW factor isn't easily defined. It also isn't easily created. Let me bookmark it and tell my friends. The WOW factor really is a combination of graphic design and packaging. It also depends on the site.
Tables allow the designer to better control what a visitor sees when they enter the home page.
Tables are also very important in giving a home page some structure. Many designers fall for the old scrolling, horizontal graphic-separated, home page of boredom. Tables cure this condition by allowing the designer to make columns. Columns allow a webmaster to put more things on the screen at one time, in easy to read blocks of text. In a way very similar to newspapers, home pages built with tables and columns allows the webmaster to control the eye movement of a visitor.