I can answer you from my perspective. I used i3 and also awesome for some time but they didn't give me real benefits. Instead they made the occasional floating

I can answer you from my perspective. I used i3 and also awesome for some time but they didn't give me real benefits. Instead they made the occasional floating window look and work crappy. I use byobu(tmux) for managing my terminal splits, which is all i need. I also have removed any window decorations from my terminal. I have shortcuts configured in gnome which let me do the occasional side-by-side windows easily. I rarely use the mouse but I have the option. Of course if you do a lot of crazy tiling like 3,3,2 or whatever, a tiling window manager might be a good idea. In my experience you just never need that. Maybe I am missing something.