Best way to set up AJAX/JQuery process?

If the table is filled with search results after submitting a form, if it returns no results or you have not submited anything yet, then the table will be empty. How is that a broken table?

Also, if you're going to use ajax, then javascript is required to access your content.

The beauty of programming is that there's not a single solution to a given problem. It's up to you to choose the one you prefer. If you don't want to depend on javascript, then don't use ajax and submit your form the old good old way with full page reload...