Just so you know xfce's window manager (or at least the xubuntu version version of it -- there may be patches not present in the upstream) allows focus follows

Just so you know xfce's window manager (or at least the xubuntu version version of it -- there may be patches not present in the upstream) allows focus follows mouse and has overlapping windows... EDIT I might be confused here. I'm reading that you are assuming that one has to use a tiling WM to get one of the features you want.