A modular, 16, 12 column grid still works good for us but, as a creative, the challenge for website design has always been to build sites that don’t fall into the trap of an obvious visual structure.
Logical order and an intelligent UI shouldn’t make a site visitor feel they’re being told how to suck eggs. They want to feel as if they’re navigating a site on their own terms but if the design has done its job the logical structure is hidden beneath beautiful digital skin.

Your clients, most likely, won’t get this thing but that’s when you, as a web designer, should step in by providing very insightful data and explain these UX basics to them.