I agree Scott, I am not really understanding the knock against columnar sections either. Granted, there are things that are pretty poorly implemented with them but there are just as many things poorly implemented in a group section as well.
If all you need is a simple columnar report, trying to implement it with a group section will require a TON of work to output column headings, pagination, etc. while trying to keep everything lined up... As long as you know the limitation before hand and it wont cause any issues then I would use a columnar section. In fact the only real issue I can think of is with the limitations with the column headings (only 2 lines, can't span columns, etc.).
In general the report writer is pretty bad at, well er um... creating reports that are inteded to be looked at by humans. If you want output that actually looks half way decent and doesn't look like it was spit out of a vacuum tube based main frame to a VW bug sized 3 dpi line printer on green/white paper that is wider than your desk (circa 1962), you have to re-author the PDF with something like formscape, BI-publisher or use a 3rd party reporting engine.
UBEs are not too bad for running batch processes to update data, process business transactions, etc., which is what they were probably originally intended for (hence the name), writing *professional looking* reports, well thats another story.