Precisely. I arrange them such that I can click in the corner I need to get what I want, and then alt-tab between them, or click for the specific one I want if I need to jump. Then I get big real estate, and easy access. I call that good UX because it works well for me.

You can enable tabbed mode for a split (or the entire screen) in i3/Sway with a single keypress-- it produces the same effect as what you describe, just automated.

edit: You can also use something like rofi to fuzzy search for windows and quickly jump to them, instead of alt+tabbing.

I don't think it's "easy access" nor "big real estate". But to each their own.

There are more ways than clicking a window to give it focus. Alt-Tab being the obvious once but also Win+{Nr} on Windows if I recall correctly.

Alt-tab works fine as "go back to last window", but that could just be a specific shortcut.

Using it to cycle through a pile of apps shown as icons or screenshots is terrible UX, IMHO.