The counter-argument to liquid-layouts is the fact that you need to specify a min-width which is not supported in all browsers (easy fix for jscript sure, but certainly not hack-free).

So for individuals like myself, who run at 1920x1200, legibility is a significant issue unless I manually resize my browser window which is about as much of a pain in the ass as scrolling horizontally.

Sadly, there is no perfect solution when designing for the web. Horses for courses.