Right, for me the default in a tiling WM has always been one fullscreen pane, which I can split on those occasional situations where I want to see more than one

Right, for me the default in a tiling WM has always been one fullscreen pane, which I can split on those occasional situations where I want to see more than one window at a time. Exactly the same as how I use screen or vim (which I use splits in far more often than my WM). If I'm not using a window right now I don't need or want to see it.