Why isn't there a "node" table?
Yes, drupal 7 does have a node table. The reason why your database does not might be either because you are looking at the wrong database or perhaps because your configuration are using a database prefix. Look in your sites/default/settings.php file and check if you are using a prefix. For example:

$databases['default']['default'] = array(
  'driver' =&gt; 'mysql',
  'host' =&gt; 'localhost',
  'database' =&gt; 'example',
  'username' =&gt; 'user',
  'password' =&gt; 'password',
  'prefix' =&gt; 'd7_',
);


or

$databases['default']['default'] = array(
  'driver' =&gt; 'mysql',
  'host' =&gt; 'localhost',
  'database' =&gt; 'example',
  'username' =&gt; 'user',
  'password' =&gt; 'password',
  'prefix' =&gt; array(
    'node' =&gt; 'd7_',
  )
);


The first example would prefix all tables in the database with d7_, while the second would only change the name of the node table.