One new plugin which opens to door on page and post layout in the most effective way I have seen to done. PageBuilder by Site Origen changes the way you approach a range of tasks in WordPress,
The freedom to layout pages with plug in functionality without code is is a great asset and a deployable tool.
This means that various components can be brought together on a single page with little effort. Effectively this allows you to set the page grid for each page or post. It seems quite liberating.
The Home page on this site uses Page Builder and that is a much better use for the tool, and a much better demonstration of some of the things that can be achieved. This would have been better if it was a page rather than a post, though I can imagine sites where this would work well for posts as well. The home page on this site uses Page Builder which is a much better demonstration of some of what can be achieved.
Version 2 of Page Builder has changed the state of play even further.